Rooney needs resources to make dreams come through
Rooney comes to the Association with an impressive pedigree and a strong football background, having managed the Republic of Ireland women's team and played for several clubs around Dublin.
Although the FAI has been criticised over the years, Rooney believes significant progress has been made, and he aims to continue that improvement.
"I remember when the Association appointed its first National Director of Coaching. It seemed like a small appointment but at the time there was only one qualified coach in Ireland. That appointment allowed people like Brian Kerr and Noel O'Reilly to learn.
"I'd like to think my appointment, which brings sport and business together, will also have a significant impact. Football is becoming a business and we need to get the resources to help everybody."
His goals are to facilitate and fund football in Ireland and he has set a number of ambitious, but, he believes, achievable targets.
"When I started playing football, it was a dream for Ireland to get to a World Cup. Now we've done it three times, our under-age teams have been hugely successful and we are well on our way be becoming world-class.
"It is also my dream to see an eircom League team in the latter stages of the Champions League.
"I see my job as giving the resources to football people at all levels from international team, under-age teams, eircom League, schoolboy teams, Junior and Intermediate teams to do their job.
"I also would personally like to see an Academy of Football in Ireland. I haven't spoken to the Board (of Management) about that yet, but I think it would be hugely beneficial for Irish football."
Rooney is pragmatic about the time scale involved. "I was talking to some of the Norwegian officials the other night and they were telling me that 15 years ago, they looked at where they were going and they are now a very strong side. It's the same in France."
Like Brian Kerr, Rooney also comes from a working-class background and, like the manager, took his first steps on the ladder to his current position at the tender age of 15.
At that age, Kerr was starting coaching at St James's Gate while Rooney founded schoolboy club Quarry Albion in Cabra, Dublin, appointing himself as secretary.
His 'man of the people' attitude was very apparent and he supports Kerr's calls for a better atmosphere at international games. When it was suggested that fans who would create this atmosphere can no longer get tickets for Lansdowne Road, Rooney recalled a story of how things have changed.
"When I was on the FAI council, I was asked whether I could sell 50 tickets for the internationals. I sold my 50 tickets and all of us - real football people used to go.
"There were 10,000 fans at a game against Belgium in one of Eoin Hand's last games, but I kept selling my 50 tickets. Then we got successful and before the Northern Ireland game when we won 2-0 (in 1989), I went in to collect my 50 tickets and was given ten.
"There were 40 people who had gone to all the games over the years who now couldn't get in. So I will be looking to meet the fans to see what can be done," he said.
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