Paul Hosford: Questions for FAI go far beyond Israel games

Some on the committee have speculated in private that the Israel debacle over the weekend was a welcome dead cat for the FAI

Protesters gathered outside the Oireachtas buildings in Dublin on Wednesday during the FAI's appearance before the sports committee. Picture: Ben Brady/Inpho

"It doesn't look good."

It didn't. And Oireachtas Sports Committee chairman Alan Kelly wasn't even broaching the FAI's handling of its men's senior football team's games against Israel.

It was another bracing appearance for football's governing body at an Oireachtas committee, but the Nations League was not the only issue that the FAI had to answer for. 

Indeed, it was Fine Gael senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn's questioning on an issue that, although not related to the 3-0 win in Hungary, also took place in that country.

Ms Ní Chuilinn raised an incident in 2023 during which members of the women's national team were "stalked and harassed" before a game in Budapest, the culmination of which was police being called after a man wearing just a towel entered a room in which a player was waiting to have a massage.

The FAI confirmed that the team had no security on the trip, but now has two staff members, which in and of itself was a stark admission, but FAI director of people and culture Aoife Rafferty telling Ms Ní Chuilinn that she could not recall whether she had received a phone call alerting her to the incident was mind-boggling.

Ms Rafferty did not say she could not remember the content of the call. She did not say that she could not recall if a staff member reporting to her had got the call and kicked it up the line to her. 

She said she could not remember whether the call was received at all, which begs the question of just how often calls like this are received? Surely something like this would stand out?

The association was there to answer questions on safeguarding, an issue which has raised serious concerns in recent years. 

But while TDs and senators probed about individual cases and who knew what about allegations which came to light in the Girls In Green documentary in 2024, the FAI's default answer was that it could not go into individual cases, earning the above rebuke from Mr Kelly.

Some on the committee have speculated in private that the debacle over the weekend, during which Ireland's players voted twice to play the games against Israel last week and this coming Sunday, was a welcome dead cat for the FAI. 

The logic being that the body politic would be so wrapped up in the issues around the FAI's handling of the game that the issues of safeguarding, of protected disclosures, and of an investigation into an international underage team coach would go largely unnoticed.

To an extent, it worked, as committee members and other TDs rotated through to ask questions about playing Israel, forcing admissions that there had been two players' votes but not why, and that nobody had spoken to the squad's goalkeepers about their feelings around the fixtures before Gavin Bazunu withdrew on Saturday, despite CEO David Courell's claim that manager Heimir Hallgrimsson had spoken to the Bolton player "for an hour" at his club in August.

It has been a particularly bruising week for Irish football. Yet another in the long history of such seven-day periods.

But, while it is the fallout from Israel which will dominate the headlines, the questions for the FAI go far beyond the men's national team and go deep into the fundamental structures of the game and its own ability or willingness to answer the questions which surround them.