What do you contribute financially to Irish football?

irishman86 wrote: »

With the way the FAI is run with the charlatan in charge theres not a chance i'd sign up for anything never mind a 100euros

Nothing to do with the FAI as stated above.

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Dots1982 wrote: »

Wouldn’t describe it as charity. Association football is underfunded in this country, got a third from the government of what GAA got in the last batch of sports council grants. It’s a measure for people who wish to make a contribution to improve football infrastructure so we have a better football culture that’s adequately funded.

You would need to sell it to Revenue as a charity

Fair enough. Can’t think of any other charities like this though...

Not much reaction to this which is fair enough. Not sure if it’s a popular opinion but I’d like to think people who don’t contribute much financially shouldn’t think they have a right to complain about Irish players, the team, managers or the FAI.

I wrote this about the issue of a irish supporter trust and about evaluating John Delaney....

In a poll recently the question was asked by YBIG.com was “should John Delaney be the the CEO of the FAI”. Out of the respondents 86% said that he shouldn’t. The attitude to the results online was who the hell were the 14% taking a pro Delaney stance. Not surprising i guess given how some of his most famous behavior channels Alan Partridge. But his behavior aside what about his performance at the job? To be honest it’s hard to say how well a job he has done. It’s very subjective. His managerial appointments have ranged from disasterous (Staunton) to not universally popular (Trap and O’Neill). So I guess his last two appointments have been a success but a complex success rather than a straightforward one. Those last two appointments have been made possible by Denis O’Brien patronage. But the reason O’Brien is involved at all is reasonably possible to be on the basis of his personal friendship with Delaney. But I guess that makes him (indirectly) a good CEO (having wealthy supportive friends)...or does it..


Judging the success of the club game here is also subjective. For the last ten years Irish club teams are producing far more international players than any time I can remember previously. They are also achieving more on a European stage. Attendances though are still not really that different from years ago and there are still cases of irish clubs finding themselves in financial trouble but again it would seem less likely for a club to go bankrupt now than before Delaney became to CEO. I don’t claim to be a expert on the Irish club scene so happy to be educated by anyone with more detail. I know about the “problem child” comments, the move to summer football and the establishment of the under 17 leagues. What it all means to assigning a rating for how Delaney handled the Irish domestic league I don’t know.
Financially the FAI are fairly healthy considering their commitments to the Aviva and how it’s opening coincided with a global financial crash which hugely affected their ability to sell season tickets. This left the FAI in a precarious situation that they are still handling the legacy of. Again it’s hard to be blown away by Delaney’s performance but given the FAI’s history of financial mismanagement it would be fair to say that while the situation was precarious it didn’t become the international embarrassment that it could have.


As you can tell I’m far from black and white on Delaney. I think he is at times foolish but I would find it difficult to dismiss him and want him replaced as most Irish football fans would do. I think an awful lot of criticism centers around his salary of 400,000 euro a year. It would certainly be my biggest criticism of him if you asked me a year ago. But do I think it warrants his dismissal? No and the main reason for that is that whoever would replace him will probably earn much the same salary. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that people wants him out of the job because he hasn’t got the general public opinion on his side. It’s something of a self fulfilling prophecy. Ask any Irish football supporter what they think of Delaney and they’ll happily trash him uninterrupted for 20 minutes but ask them who should replace him or what should his successor do differently and they are unlikely to put forward much in the way of concrete ideas.


So if I am on the fence on Delaney what was I trying to achieve in writing this? As far as I can see there is one way to weaken FAI while also strengthening Irish football. For me the Irish footballing scene is in bad need of a financially powerful supporters club/trust. The FAI dominate Irish football because they control the sport financially in this country. Clubs depend on them for grants so they are financially indentured to them. What Irish football needs to keep the FAI honest is a competitor in the form of a supporters trust that can support capital projects around the country.
Most money in this country from the public which goes on sport goes on the GAA. To use myself as an example; I am as passionate about the Irish Football team as I am about any other sports entity in this country despite being a GAA fanatic. Yet when it comes to where my money has gone over my life, there is simply no comparison between what I contributed to GAA at national and local level to what I contributed to Irish football. It wouldn’t be even close to 5% of the amount I have given to GAA. I feel guilty about this and cognizant that I have very little right to complain about matters pertaining to Irish football because I simply haven’t contributed enough in return. I think I am not alone in this. Would I contribute 50 to 100 euro a year to a supporters trust setup to further Capital projects that are only to be dedicated to football? Yes and I think others would as well. If not then them like me currently have no right to do anything other then watch the team on TV and support them from an armchair or bar stool.


By providing an alternative source of funding to Irish clubs, this new trust can have an impact and a say in the development of Irish football free of the political considerations of how the FAI will make funds available to clubs. It will threaten Delaney and the FAI not through confrontation or demonstration but by becoming placeholders within the Irish Football landscape. All this while providing better facilities to our young footballers around the country. That is still the most important part. The GAA got three times what Football did in the last published set of government grants from November. If people wish to see Irish football fight at a world class level no amount of moaning is going to help. Direct investment is badly needed.

Mr.H wrote: »

Because clubs like Limerick for example try to fund themselves. By trying to host a game against Barcelona at thomond park, only to be told that are not allowed. Any big money games must be held in Dublin to bring the money to Dublin.

This is why I won't fund the Irish game. Until Delaney is gone I will not pay another cent to his cash cow.

If we halved Delaney's wages and put the saved half into our game it would be a start.

Good example of FAI flexing their muscles at a cost to the general on the limerick thing.

Don't follow your logic on the 2nd part of the post. The proposed trust is raising its own money from FAI and funding soccer projects around the country. Its basically challenging the monopoly of the FAI. If it was popular enough, albeit unlikely, it could actually sideline the FAI.

There's no real point moaning about the FAI, taking action to oppose it is far more productive.