FAI will clear Aviva debts by 2020, says Delaney

THE FAI plan to clear their debt on the Aviva Stadium by 2020.

And there were no fears expressed at the association’s AGM in Wexford on Saturday that Irish football could be facing into 10 years of living dangerously as, having heard the latest financial report, a succession of delegates from the floor hailed the delivery of the new stadium and praised the stewardship of chief executive John Delaney.

Afterwards, exchanges with asceptical media were rather less cordial but Delaney again insisted the association can meet its repayments on the stadium while continuing to fund the game in Ireland by “living within our means” and generating sponsorship and other sources of revenue.

Dismissing as inaccurate reports the FAI were in debt to the tune of more than €70m, Delaney said that the debt stood at €38m at the end of 2009.

Since then, the FAI has paid another €21 million towards the cost of the stadium, leaving them with a remaining commitment of €2.5m on the project, to be paid in 2011.

Delaney told reporters: “Our debt to our bank is €38m on the stadium at the end of 2009 and we’re very comfortable with our bankers. We’ve borrowed our monies, we’ll have it paid back in 10 years and after 2020 the monies that will be derived from that will be huge.”

It was finally revealed at the AGM that some 6,300 of the controversial Vantage Club seats for the new stadium have now been allocated, thoughDelaney refused to be drawn on how many of those were tied in tosponsorship deals. It was also confirmed that nearly 1,000 of the 10,000 premium seats were already accounted for under the old Lansdowne Road 10-deal, which still has three years left to run.

“We have 3,700 seats to sell and we expect to sell them over the nextcouple of years,” said Delaney.

Asked if that meant there could be empty seats at the Aviva throughout the forthcoming European 2012 campaign, the FAI boss said additional seats were now being offered to existing Vantage Club holders at a price reduction of a third.

“We’ll see how many of those are taken up,” he added, “and after that we’ll put them on public sale.”

Delaney accepted that the economic downturn had been responsible for the failure of the much-vaunted Vantage Club scheme to meet its original targets.

“Nobody saw the recession coming to the extent that it did,” he said. “You would have hoped for a better economic climate and the FAI isn’t the only organisation or business in this country which has had to change its approach to how it conducts itsbusiness on a day-to-day basis. So, yes, it’s a more challenging economic climate than we would like but we’ve adapted to it with our bankers.”

Largely as a result of revenues generated by the Italy and France World Cup qualifiers, and the fact that the senior team played seven home games during the year, the FAI turned a loss of €16m for 2008 into a profit of €3.6m in 2009.

But the FAI Director of Finance Mark O’ Leary assured delegates that the budget for the next 10 years is not based on qualification for tournaments or even on drawing the kind of high-profile opposition which would ensure big television revenue.

The AGM, which came at the end of a week-long ‘Festival of Football’ in Wexford, also saw Paddy McCaul take over as president of the FAI from David Blood.

And Cork City’s FAI representative Jim Murphy – recently elected Chairman of the FAI Youths Committee – was given honorary life membership in recognition of his service to the game.

Next year’s AGM will take place in Clare in July, following which it’s understood that, in 2011, it will be Donegal’s turn to host the FAI.