Conway admits his term could still end this month

FAI president Donal Conway has announced that his term in office could still come to an end this month, as the forthcoming Annual General Meeting at which he is due to be re-elected unopposed could yet be postponed.

The embattled FAI chief received a letter from Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross earlier this week, demanding that he withdraw his nomination.

And now Conway has left the door open for that AGM to be put back until later in the year, confirming that there will be a press conference regarding the matter following tomorrow’s Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).

“I started a conversation yesterday with my colleagues and it’s really to them whom I will go first on what’s going to happen next. We will have a press conference after the EGM,” Conway said, when directly questioned about whether the AGM could still be postponed.

Minster Ross had stated in his letter that the “process for the upcoming election falls short of the transparency and democracy which we would expect of an organisation seeking to implement good governance practices”.

He also cited a meeting with the FAI president in May, at which Conway stated theentire FAI board would resign at the forthcoming AGM in Meath.

“That is exactly what the intention of the board was, that everybody would step away at the AGM. And that’sabsolutely my intention,” Conway added.

“But the members of the association and the recommendation in this [governance review] report talked about continuity. I said at the press conference here that I was elected for a four-year term but from March last there was no such thing as a four-year term for Donal Conway. That’s gone.

“So my term as president is going to end in July and may still.... I just want to be clear on this. The board collectively looked at the report and said ‘is there any merit or value in one or two members going on to an interim board?’

“And I made it clear to Sport Ireland that if I did transition to the interim board it was one year and I was finished. It was not some sense of resuming long-term as president. I would be finished,” Conway continued.

“We are looking at a number of scenarios. Wecannot just disregard what is being said. People have asked me over the last number of months ‘what’s yourmotivation’ in terms of a role on the interim board.

“It’s simply beingpragmatic. There is an awful lot going on in the FAI. There are two serious investigations and a number of other work programmes as well. I have been centrally across them all over the last couple of months. So it’s what is the most effective or pragmatic thing to do.

“There are all sorts of other suggestions made as to what my motivation is. It’s simply that. I was never going to be a four-year president. That was long gone when this all started because I am culpable having been a member of the board for a long time.”

Ahead of tomorrow’s EGM, at which the FAI will seek to ratify the 78 recommendations put forward by the Sport Ireland/FAI Governance Review Group, Conway also rowed back on his previous assertion that the association did not have a contingency plan should they fail to pass with a required two-thirds majority.

“We have a Plan A and Plan B. I don’t go talking to the members about a Plan Bbecause I want Plan A. There is a Plan B, can I just say to you there is a Plan B. If the rules don’t pass we know what we have to do.

“If we don’t adopt new rules old rules dictate what we can do. If we don’t get through the EGM and adopt this report,” Conway confirmed.

Plan B is we’re governed by the old rules, we can reconstitute the board. I’m emphasising very strongly, this [governance review] has been broadly recommended. This is the first key step [to restoring funding].

On the topic of funding, Conway also conceded that it is of critical importance to secure a final package with UEFA, the FAI’s largest stakeholder, although he was coy about a timeframe.

“UEFA is 20 to 25 per cent of our funding. We are, and have quite a lot of work done, with analysis and planning with UEFA. I can’t speak on that purely because it’s a work in progress and UEFA certainly don’t want me speaking about that. We are in discussions with UEFA.

"It’s at a particular point in time that it doesn’t serve properly. They are our single biggest stakeholder.”

Meanwhile, Bohemians have been hit with a fine by the FAI and had Monday’s 1-0 defeat to UCD in the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division upgraded to a 3-0 loss, after they were found to have fielded an ineligible player.

Danny Mandroiu, the SSE Airtricity/Soccer Writers’ player of the month for June, was due to serve a suspension in the fixture.