AGM a night of embarrassment for Irish football

SHAMBLES: FAI President Gerry McAnaney. Pic: INPHO/Ryan Byrne

It was inevitable Thursday’s FAI annual general meeting was going to be a frosty one for the association from the moment minutes were queried.

Eight items were included on the agenda for the virtual gathering of 89 eligible voters but the final three – including the rubberstamping of Kerry FC as a new League of Ireland senior club – were ditched when the meeting was abandoned.

Curtailing a summit just past the midway point at two hours and 40 minutes may seem wise but it wasn’t by design.

This was undeniably a night of embarrassment for Irish football, a shambles prompting questions of whether the association has indeed at all moved on from its past ills.

To summarise, the prime purpose of the resumed meeting, to reappoint four directors and ratify another, was unable to be completed, bringing the occasion to a premature halt.

“Goodbye and Happy Christmas,” came the hasty swansong from President Gerry McAnaney.

It wasn’t just the electoral blunders – reminiscent of the Government’s abandoned e-voting machines – that blighted the event, for it was pockmarked by gaffes from the mea culpa conceded by chief executive Jonathan Hill’s over the minutes.

Functioning committees, that age-old bastion of the FAI, tripped him up.

The National League Executive wasn’t the last one convened, he was informed by deposed board member Dave Moran, while later on he was apologetic for asserting the Underage Committee was up and running. Moreover, the excuse provided of the schoolboy fraternity failing to fill their seats was contested in the chat function by their new administrator.

Even through the medium of cyberspace, the friction was apparent, raising the question as to why the meeting didn’t follow the same in-person format as the initial attempt in July at the Mansion House.

Apparently, Chairman Roy Barrett hadn’t heeded advice from his football directors to either avoid the remote setting associated with the pandemic era or defer it till January.

“In July we just about achieved an in-person quorum and given the time of year and the weather conditions, with people travelling from all over the country, we had real concern about achieving a quorum in those circumstances,” said the independent Chair, despite the meeting date being set a month ago.

Confusion duly ensued.

Age levels and IT knowhow vary across the FAI’s broad church of members, guaranteeing glitches galore and reaching a crescendo for the elections. The FAI’s IT manager Piotr Gora, currently off sick, expressed his ‘frustration’ online yesterday, vowing to ‘resolve the issues’. The guru recruited to launch the new player Comet registration system has taken on extra duties in his absence.

Words as well as inactions contributed to the fiasco.

Pleas from Barrett since the summer to reach the Government’s required portion of 40% female representation on the board by the end of 2023 were undermined by an admission that no advertisements were issued inviting expressions of interest for independent director posts.

This was while three male non-executive directors, Packie Bonner, Robert Watt and Gary Twohig, were seeking re-election, narrowing scope to source two women during 2023 by the deadline.

New company Secretary Catherine Hawthorne didn’t help matters either by declaring each pillar was responsible for how they nominated their football directors to the board.

That shone a light on infighting within the schoolboy ranks but was also inconsistent given the FAI supervised the recent election of the professional chamber that saw Niamh O’Mahony shade Caroline Rhatigan 21-18 in a ballot.

Further bewilderment materialised when Barrett’s hardline position on the gender quota timetable was contradicted by McAnaney. “There’s leeway with the Government on this because, unlike other sports, we’re making progress,” said the Corkman, hinting at an extension.

It wasn’t the end of the mixed messages. During the subsequent press conference, also staged online, the stance of Barrett that the case in the ether against Vera Pauw was closed didn’t chime with Hill's.

He wanted time to meet with the Ireland manager and review the investigator’s report, a holding position reflecting the seriousness of the allegations.

Three years ago, when a December AGM exposed the FAI’s proximity to the brink, a chat function didn’t form part of the lexicon.

Covid-19 brought about new conversational ways but a slight glance at the array of acerbic comments in the FAI discussion portal on Thursday underlined how far they’ve to go for faith from their constituents to prevail.