After early skirmishes, FAI delegation come under second-half pressure

At an early stage in a long day’s journey into evening, FAI president Donal Conway had been listing some of the positive things being done under the association’s leadership, among which he included the promotion of ‘glow football’ which, played under ultra violet light, he told the Oireachtas Committee, allows for the game to be played “in the dark”.

By the end of the day, the phrase “in the dark” had come to cover a multitude of far from glowing things, ranging from the extraordinary revelation that, contrary to previous press statements issued by the association, the majority of FAI board members hadn’t known for two years about the controversial €100,000 loan provided by then CEO John Delaney in 2017, to the mounting sense of frustration among the politicians that – in the face of various constraints imposed by legal advice, commercial sensitivity, employment contracts, on-going reviews and reports and changes in key personnel at the FAI – they were going to end up, as they had begun, with far more questions than answers.