FAI told to ‘grow up’ or face withdrawal of funding

SPORTS Minister John O’Donoghue yesterday claimed the FAI needed to ‘grow up’ and threatened funding would be withdrawn if the association does not comply with Government requests.

Already the Sports Council has made a similar threat and is currently withholding €300,000 because sufficient progress has not been made in implementing the recommendations of the 2002 Genesis report.

Speaking just days after FAI chief executive Fran Rooney resigned amid continuing infighting, Mr O’Donoghue said the way the FAI was being run was not acceptable.

“There is a general feeling out there that the performance and professionalism of the international side is not being reflected in the inner workings of the FAI itself,” he said.

Speaking on RTÉ radio, Mr O’Donoghue said stop-gap solutions to the recommendations of the Genesis report were no longer acceptable.

Chief among those recommendations are the creation of four FAI posts, including that of financial controller. However, the FAI is dragging its feet on the matter and has proposed internal appointments for two of the positions - a measure unacceptable to the Government and the Sports Council.

“We’ve been waiting too long for the appointment,” said the minister.

“It is time, to be quite frank about it, for the FAI to grow up. It’s time for the FAI to look in the mirror and say ‘look, things aren’t going well’.

“If the FAI are not going to comply with the request of the Government then I will have to look at arrangements for funding and see what is going to happen in relation to the FAI,” he said. The International Equestrian Federation (FEI) also came under criticism from Mr O’Donoghue, who described the Cian O’Connor case as “a farce with all the ingredients of a bewildering Nancy Drew novel”.

“I am at a loss to understand why the FEI has not at the very least published findings of the first sample and ensured that the blood sample which was in its possession was analysed and the results published,” he said, referring to the samples for Mr O’Connor’s horse Waterford Crystal.

The fate of Mr O’Connor’s Olympic gold medal will be decided today when the test on the B blood sample for Waterford Crystal begins at the US Equestrian Federation laboratory.

“There is nothing sinister,” said EFI spokesman Colin McClelland.

“The only time the FEI publishes findings is at the very end of the investigation.”