Irish soccer chief tries to pull off a sales miracle at stadium of dreams

IF John Delaney, chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), achieves his target of selling 10,000 10-year corporate tickets for the new Lansdowne Road at prices ranging from €12,000 to €32,000, he should be brought into the Government immediately and asked to perform alchemy.

Any man with this ability to sell such expensive luxuries in these extraordinary times should be put in charge of raising new capital for the banks and then much more besides.

Delaney was in very positive mood in an interview he gave to Irish Examiner football correspondent Liam Mackey, published last Saturday. He said the FAI’s agents had managed to sell more than 1,000 tickets in the first two months and that this was in line with projections as to how quickly those tickets would be sold.