Clubs discuss plans that led to two League officials resigning
The officers shocked club delegates and FAI officers with their announcement at a meeting that was reconvening after a lunch break to discuss the FAI’s radical plans for change.
The proposals were put to the League clubs’ delegates by chief executive Fran Rooney and included in his submission was his claim that the League was undercapitalised and needed to aim at providing up to 1m in prize money.
Mr Rooney explained yesterday: “It was a proposal from Shelbourne that the League should fully integrate with the FAI that gave rise to this meeting. The officers of the FAI were invited along to present their view of where the League should be going and I made a presentation that explained my ideas.”
Mr Rooney’s presentation lasted for about 45 minutes and delegates were due to discuss his proposals in the afternoon. But the resignations made that impossible and caused the abandonment of the meeting.
Mr Rooney told delegates: “Essentially a different financial model is needed to secure the future of the League and the game here because the League itself is under financial pressure and many of the clubs are courting insolvency and finding it hard to continue.”
Mr Rooney, who was appointed to the top position less than 12 months ago, said a new approach was needed and it needed to involve all strands of the game. He had spent much of his time talking to football people are all levels and learning of their difficulties.
He said there were three options open to the League: (1) the clubs could continue as they have been doing; (2) the clubs could cut ties with the FAI and operate independently as an autonomous body: (3) they could fully integrate with the FAI.
He told delegates that they should draw up a two-year plan which could be activated immediately and draw up a five-year plan which would lead in that time-frame to the restructuring that was necessary to secure the future of the League and its growth.
Mr Rooney suggested that his proposals were presented to the delegates as a discussion document, but the two League officers who resigned claimed their action was as a result of a lack of consultation on the part of Mr Rooney and FAI honorary treasurer John Delaney.
The two officers released a statement yesterday in which Mr Dillon said he had outlined to Saturday’s meeting a series of events in recent months which led to the deterioration of the working relationship between the eircom League and the association and the lack of consultation.
In the statement, he said that continuing interference, both direct and indirect, in League matters made it impossible for he and Tommy Allen to efficiently and effectively conduct the business of the League.
In his opinion, the proposal put to the meeting was a further example of the power-struggle ongoing in the FAI for a number of months. The League had received no prior consultation in relation to the proposal nor did it make any reference to the League’s own proposed business plan.
Mr Rooney said there was a huge body of support for his proposal. He had presented his proposals on the understanding that the clubs and League officers would go away and discuss his plan and come back for further discussions when they were ready.
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