The questions John Delaney needs to answer

He just had to be involved, didn’t he? 

Amidst one of the biggest ever scandals to envelop and overthrow in any sporting sphere, there was no way John Delaney couldn’t march the FAI into the midst of it, making global headlines that should have been way beyond our limited means.

Even by the chief executive’s own standards — and this is a man with a penchant for taking up swathes of ink — this was quite a coup. After all, he’s made our association one of the most complicit with the way Fifa went about their business and one of the biggest beneficiaries of their beyond shady ways.

In typical Delaney fashion though, he’s tried to deflect from the issue by confronting reality square on. Ever since Sepp Blatter resigned, he’s been telling anyone who’d listen that he was the renegade that refused to bow, shoeless John taking on the designer suits of corruption all by himself. Really though, it’s made him seem like a bullied schoolboy who tells his friends he won the fight, but only after his tormenter moved out of town. Certainly there were no tales told while Blatter was still in power and, far worse, he kneeled at the altar courtesy of his shocking decisions and actions. It allows us to add hypocrite to a lengthy list of charges — but that should be the least of Delaney’s worries now.

Let’s make this clear. In 2009, when accepting money in the shadows, John Delaney and the FAI assisted Blatter in his method of repugnant governance. By taking the cheque and signing a confidentiality agreement, they became a massive part of the problem, allowing Fifa to operate in the very way they’re fawning outrage over all week. We can criticise Concacaf and Caf all we want, but we are now no better.

Delaney can label it how he likes too, but we all know what the €5m represented. It was hush money to stop being a nuisance. Delaney even said he’d have taken €10m if it had been on the table but that just goes to show a lack of understanding and a lack of morals.

Some questions for John Delaney that I’d like to ask. Does he understand the fabric of football, given a refereeing mistake saw him threaten a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport? If he felt so strongly, why trade his beliefs for euros? Was he just chancing his arm and if so is that any way for a professional in a position of high diplomacy to act? Did he not think a confidentiality agreement tends to mean something is off or did he just presume we’d never know? Does he believe that the brand of the FAI has been hugely damaged yet again? And does he not think enough is enough and it’s time to resign?

Of course we can’t ask him any of that, because Delaney tends not to talk to the sports media. He only chatters to showbiz journalists.

Meanwhile, those sports writers who understand the severity of the situation were at the Champions League final discussing it. Any from the UK and the continent we spoke to agreed that had Delaney been part of their association, he’d be gone.

But not in Ireland where some even see what he did as a badge of honour. It’s typical of our political outlook, an extension of the same attitude we never learned from despite getting a whooping from the Celtic Tiger. In essence, the very same people moralising about the corruption in Fifa saw getting €5m into our bank account as a great piece of business. Thus we’ve no shame, as when it comes to staring in the mirror we’ve a different set of standards. And, when it comes to judging ourselves, what matters it’s not the why or how but the how much.

Emerging counties failed by hurling chiefs

Hurling people from the same handful of successful counties get accused of snobbery but while true, it’s misunderstood. They aren’t snobby towards other sports for, frankly, they’ve a right to think that theirs is the beautiful game. But they are snobby towards that game, one in which they overprotect the failing majority to the frustration and pain of a bustling majority that could help hurling grow.

It’s why you’ll have heard little about the fascinating competition the Christy Ring has transformed into, little about Kerry’s brilliant development, little about the wonderful tale of Derry city becoming a relative stronghold of the sport.

Those two met in the final on Saturday as the GAA again ran the lower tiers out of town before the big boys came to play, leaving the best months empty for almost all.

It’s an attitude that resulted in situations like 2014 when Kildare were forced to play six weeks in a row on their way to glory, with the prize being a promotion play-off the following week.

Then again, the almost-all don’t matter, as our national game is for the self-selected.

Sadly, it’s symptomatic of how hurling is treated in much of the country by little of the country.

While the top table consistently worry about places like Offaly and Wexford based on past successes, they ignore the victories of present and potential for the future.

It’s why we’ve a situation where on the first Saturday of June, summer was over for 23 of the 35 hurling-loving county teams.

All in all, it’s the equality of the few.

Xavi goes off to Qatar: Go figure

You’ll know the story of Xavi by now. Signed up by Barcelona at 11, he earned roughly €24 in his first cheque and bought his mother a toaster. Humbly, he lived at home for much of his career. The keystone in a style that not only transformed Barcelona and Spain into two of football’s greatest teams, he was the dynamo in a stylistic revolution that transformed the game. After all that, a Champions League title on Saturday seemed a worthy send-off as he left the bench late to lift the trophy.

However, think again. It takes something special to tarnish all that, but he’s managed it. Moving to Qatar to cash in further, Xavi inexplicably signed up as an ambassador for a 2022 World Cup that is not only corrupt but murderous. Despite the human rights abuses being overlooked in Spanish media, he and his advisors will have known plenty about the conditions and deaths of Asian and north African migrant construction workers but still he signed up to be marched out in front of the media to defend it with a smile.

For some, his football statistics make him immune to reality. But here in the realms of decency, and for all his passing percentages over what seems a lifetime, none ever reached near the important figures like the 1,200 or so estimated workers killed in Qatar ahead of the World Cup. Classless, he heads for the desert sunset, his work as a human already outdoing anything he could as a superhuman sportsman.

No panic this time for super Serena

A quick tale to keep in mind as Serena Williams wins the French Open, becoming just the third woman after Margaret Court and Steffi Graff to capture 20 Grand Slams.

In October 2011, after a period of nearly two years without a call, drug testers arrived to her home. She fled to the panic room, claiming she thought she was being robbed. No test was conducted after she finally emerged. Just saying...