When it comes to passing the buck, FAI chief is no match for Bertie
The Taoiseach can hardly have liked being photographed with the FAI’s chief executive. Ahern was booed at a number of events he attended mid-way through the life of his second government, but it was nothing like the abuse hurled at the Irish side, its manager and its chief executive last Wednesday week.
It appears that not delivering on your promises in politics does not result in the same opprobrium as failure in sport. Nor does it require such instant and brutal reaction.
To run the FAI, you need to be as much a politician as a skilled businessman, as Delaney knows. You have to be a shrewd political operator to make your way to the top of an organisation like the FAI — with its strange mix of ambitious professional employees and power-hungry amateur members — and to stay there.
There are also demands relating to communicating with a volatile and emotional public that do not fall upon businessmen running an ‘ordinary’ enterprise with comparable turnover.
I doubt that Delaney had to ask Ahern “what do I do now?” as the (second) Cyprus debacle unfolded in front of them, but he may have been tempted to ask how he should do it.
Ahern, after all, has stacks of relevant experience of facing crises and of taking measures to limit the extent of the damage to himself.
Whether or not he reminded Delaney of it, Ahern reacted swiftly to limit the damage to himself of the loss of popularity of his Government soon after the 2002 general election.
Most notably, he got rid of Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy in mid-2004, skilfully using a vacancy as European commissioner as a plausible cover for the change after dismal European parliament and local election results. His replacement, Brian Cowen, has proven a popular, if unimaginative, replacement and, grumbles notwithstanding, largely does what he is told by Ahern.
Delaney realised last week that similar remedial action was required to save his own skin, that he could no longer be associated with Staunton’s failure because to do so would have put his own job at risk. His way of butt-covering also owed much to the influence of Ahern but, unfortunately for Delaney, was nowhere near as well executed.
The FAI’s handling of the fallout on the day after the Cyprus match was remarkably similar to Fianna Fáil’s political handling of Ahern’s personal financial crisis when first revealed 13 months ago.
RTÉ television’s Six One news programme was offered an exclusive recorded interview with Delaney at a neutral venue rather than live in an RTÉ studio.
How Ireland could do with a midfielder who passes the ball as quickly and imaginatively as Delaney passes the buck. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t on target in the way Ahern had managed to score against the odds during his TV opportunity a year ago. Delaney did the sorrowful hangdog bit well — without the added element of Bertie’s tears — but was too transparently self-serving in his attempt to lump all the blame onto the woefully unsuited Staunton.
More pertinently, he held unnamed others in the FAI responsible for the manager’s selection and appointment. This wasn’t the first time he’d tried to spread the responsibility, introducing it in a lengthy radio interview he did with me at the turn of the year, when it was clear already — even before the San Marino and second Cyprus debacle — that Staunton was floundering.
Delaney listed instead all of his achievements as FAI chief executive relating to turnover and other off-playing-field issues. While all of this is correct, and his performance in all other aspects of the job stands to him, it had nothing to do with what has happened on the football pitch under his man, Stan.
Everyone with an interest in soccer knows Delaney instigated the sacking of Brian Kerr two years ago — under whom the Irish team performed much better, albeit if not well enough — and then promised fans a world-class replacement. It was Delaney who travelled to the British midlands with an offer for the former Irish captain who was seeing out his career coaching Walsall reserves. It was Delaney who gave him a four-year, €450,000 per annum contract, with former England manager Bobby Robson added in to the mix to deflect the inevitable criticism that Staunton did not have the job credentials.
Although he had insisted in a number of previous interviews that Staunton would be given his full four-year term as manager, irrespective of the results in this European championship, Delaney laid the ground in that RTÉ interview for sacking Staunton by pointedly refusing to pledge his support.
That wasn’t his decision to make either, he insisted. The management committee would meet to discuss what to do, and possibly earlier than scheduled if that’s what people wanted, he said, therefore inviting the November meeting to be brought forward urgently (Cue last Tuesday evening’s meeting at which Staunton was fired, using the euphemism “mutual consent”).
By giving the interview in the manner he did, and by refusing to express any confidence in Staunton as manager, he had twisted the knife in his so-called friend’s back very effectively.
DELANEY gave the majority of the public and the media what they wanted, but his efforts at being a politician were hamfisted. This way of getting rid of Staunton was nasty and unnecessary. If he felt it was essential he had to give an interview, then a lot of people would have appreciated it more had he been brave enough to admit that he had made a bad mistake in giving the job to Staunton.
That’s not the way of politics or big business, though.
Delaney should think of Ahern again now as he assesses his options. The Taoiseach has never given a novice a position of responsibility. The idea of a political equivalent of Staunton getting a job like the one he got would be unthinkable. Yet that unwillingness to gamble in the making of appointments has stood to Ahern who would never make the mistake Delaney apparently is about to make. Rocked by suggestions that he and his associates know nothing about football — despite their jobs — or as to how to get a suitable manager, they are turning the job over to an outside consultant. Can you imagine Ahern doing something like that? But maybe there is method to Delaney’s apparent madness. If the next appointment fails, Delaney will be able to say this decision definitely was not his whereas, if it works, he will say that he oversaw the process and approved the decision recommended by the consultant.
Maybe Bertie did whisper something worthwhile in Delaney’s ear that night in Croke Park after all.
The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm
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