Quinn puts plan for Irish football into print

After talking a lot over the past 18 months about his grand vision to overhaul Irish football, Niall Quinn has put his plans into print for the FAI’s governance review committee to digest.

As expected, creating a viable League of Ireland industry forms the backbone of his proposals.

The ex-Ireland striker and Sunderland chairman also has designs on modernising the governance structure of the association and he has assembled a team to produce a 31-page document strategising a blueprint for the next 20 years.

Entitled the Strategic, Commercial, Operational and Governance Review of Football in Ireland, its author is FMG president Kieran Foley.

He’s a former League of Ireland footballer based in New York with a track record for commercial success in both the corporate and sports sectors.

He established Caribbean Premier Cricket league and spent a decade working for Digicel.

Also part of Quinn’s project team is Roy Barrett, the MD of Goodbody Stockbrokers; the Sunderland Foundation CEO Lesley Spuhler, and Barry Lysaght, a senior lawyer at Fifa.

It is understood the possibility of developing an All-Ireland league is on the agenda.

Quinn and Foley have asked the governance committee, comprised mainly of Sport Ireland representatives, to allow their group to develop the framework.

We will have responsibility to reconstitute the framework of football, both from a governance stand-point, operational and commercial, and upon completion, hand back the complete running to the newly-redeveloped FAI.

The specifics of Quinn’s plans are ambitious: including boosting participation levels by 7.5pc annually from next year; developing a viable and profitable domestic league by 2026; one team reaching the group stages of the Uefa Champions League by 2027; the Ireland senior team to qualify for the 2026 World Cup competition and 2028 Euros, plus the women’s team being part of the 2027 World Cup.

Quinn will be among those sharing their views at the ‘Football Forum’ to be held at the Mansion House next Friday, May 31, where interested parties will expand on their visions for Irish football.

Meanwhile, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross has been scathingly critical of Noel Mooney’s appointment as “general manager for football services and partnerships” at the FAI, calling the move a “backwards step” to the “dark ages”.

Writing in the Sunday Independent, Minister Ross argues that the appointment of Mooney, seen as loyal to John Delaney’s old regime, suggests the FAI isn’t interested in radical change.

Ross writes: “For a brief moment, shell-shocked by their disastrous performance before a Joint Oireachtas Committee, it seemed the FAI had bought into this radical break with the past; that the old regime was in retreat; that the baton would be passed on to talented independent newcomers.

"A caretaker board would organise a seamless break with the past. We dared to hope.

“Our hopes have been shattered. Last week, the caretaker board decided to do more than caretake. It appointed a man called Noel Mooney to take the reins for a “temporary” six-month period.

"It did this in the face of the opposition of not only Sport Ireland, but also the Government.

“In recent days, it has been desperately trying to spin this retrograde appointment to the media as a prudent development.

Minister Shane Ross

“Public confidence in the FAI, already at its lowest ebb, will now hit rock-bottom. The decision to install Mooney was a backwards step. The Irish people have a right to know why the top brass of the FAI chose him to take the role of general manager (chief executive by another name).

"Equally, they have the right to know why we objected in no uncertain terms in a tense, face-to-face meeting with the FAI.

“Mooney is Irish, a former devoted employee of the FAI, now working for Uefa. There was no known selection process, no interview for his shock appointment. The FAI board sought him out.

"They nearly all know him of old. If this cynical manoeuvre succeeds, they will feel eminently comfortable with him. He knows the FAI ropes.

“An FAI loyalist to his fingertips, he is not the person needed to guide the FAI back into the affections and trust of the public.

"The FAI needs an independent chief executive, a troubleshooter without links to the FAI board, selected in an open, transparent process.

“Mooney may have many talents, but he is one of the last people on God’s earth suitable for this job. There is no going back for the FAI.

"Going to Noel Mooney is going back to the dark ages.”