FAI Council to debate reforms after another week of discord
FAI independent chairman Roy Barrett said in a statement: 'We had all previously accepted that the overriding need was to ensure the financial future of our Association.' Picture: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
John Delaney is gone but the FAI's problems remain wedded to power and who wields it.
A special meeting of the association's council will take place today, the agenda being the memorandum of understanding signed by independent chairperson Roy Barrett with the government last January which averted financial disaster and immediate collapse.
The reforms contained in that agreement need to be approved at the FAI's AGM at the end of the month. If they're not then €36m of Government funding gets pulled and, as Barrett has said this week, the FAI faces into insolvency and the apocalyptic hellscape that comes with it.
Uefa and Fifa are on board with the memorandum, It's some of the terms in the MoU that rankle others closer to home.
Most contentious is the stipulation in that agreement that there should be a six-six split between elected football directors and another six independents on a board where the breakdown is currently eight and four.
With Barrett already in as an independent chair, the fear is it would cede control to 'outsiders'.
Another sticking point is the hoops through which council members and prospective committee members will have to jump, though this is now a fit and proper test and assessments on conflicts of interests and skillsets rather than the original decree that would limit them to ten-year terms.
Either way, if the reforms are passed then two of the current elected directors will lose their seats and members of the council will have to prove their worth and suitability for roles they have held for various lengths of time without much question.
And amid all this is the dispute between Barrett, interim CEO Gary Owens, and his interim deputy Niall Quinn on one side and the eight elected members of the board as it currently stands on the other over the process by which that very MoU was or was not signed.
It's all been unedifying and damaging.
Owens said the board had seen, and signed off on, the MoU before it was signed. The eight elected board members said they'd seen it at the time but had concerns that were relayed to Barrett who didn't respond before signing.
Barrett followed up this with a statement yesterday standing over the process in January and saying the board, including president Gerry McAnaney, had signed off on statements at the time which welcomed the development.
“Some expressed discontent with elements of the MoU via email but we had all previously accepted that the overriding need was to ensure the financial future of our Association,” Barrett's statement read. “I subsequently had no hesitation in signing the MoU on behalf of the Association later that day.”
Owens and Niall Quinn had been exasperated with the depiction of the '6 + 6' board issue as a '6 v 6'. Now deeper divisions have appeared between them in the executive arm of the organisation and the volunteer element on the board.
Niamh Brennan, professor of management at UCD and founder and academic director of the UCD Centre for Corporate Governance, appeared on RTÉ Radio yesterday evening and gave a fairly damning verdict on the mess that has unfolded.
Prof Brennan said it was her impression that this was a “dysfunctional board” with factions developing and, that being the case, it was difficult to see how such a board could do its business properly. And out of this mess the FAI desperately needs an accord and unity.
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