Reforming FAI: Is it a case of people before principled process?

Twenty-five years ago, this week, football in Ireland was on a high with the men’s national team having just returned from its second FIFA World Cup. In contrast, our rugby union team was in the middle of one of its poorest decades in history, never finishing outside the bottom two of the then Five Nations.

As elite rugby union became “open” in 1995, the IRFU struggled initially to come to terms with professionalism. And yet, within a decade, and for the first time since 1985, a Triple Crown was won. Since 2004 – the year in which John Delaney would become caretaker CEO of the FAI - much success at provincial and international level has followed for Irish rugby.