John Delaney at the FAI Thread - (Mod Notes in OP)

salmocab wrote: »

I actually think he does care, he had an image of himself that’s been tarnished beyond belief. It was more than the money for him he wanted a lifestyle and inflated sense of his worth. He’s made off with a ridiculous amount of undeserved cash that he got not for what he could do for the sport but for what he and his cronies could get away with while it lasted and that’s what he will be remembered for. He will always be known as the man that destroyed Irish football. He has no way back in this country to the celebrity that he had and good riddance to him.

Why not?

Look at how FF are doing these days.

Is there any FAI money going towards the redevelopment of Dalymount Park? I know there were plans for a FAI football museum

[Deleted User] wrote: »

FF can also point to a history of fighting fascism, keeping us out of WWI, the Lemass era, restoring economic sanity in the late 80s, the role in the Peace Process etc. Delaney's cv is a bit...thinner...

Hmm.

FF gave the fascists in the RC Church free reign in this country.

FF didn’t exist during WWI. Neither did an independent Ireland.

Delaney didn’t destroy the country leading to emigration, house repossessions, depression and suicides.

Deleted User wrote: »

One thing I have to wonder.

Where did Delaney think it was all going to end? I mean, the penny must have dropped at some stage a few years ago that he was in a world of trouble, presumably around the time he started crushing dissent, banning questions at AGMs etc.

I kinda wonder was it around the time his relationship with Emma English was hitting the front pages. It all sounded very over the top, like a man who needed a distraction. You see it in people who have business issues, where it's like they learn to think about something else and live almost a Walter Mitty type existence.

I'd love to know what his plan was for next year, "debt free by 2020". Was he just going to announce they had no more debts? What the hell would the end of year accounts have looked like? How were they going to hide €55 million of debt? How would they hide the repayments? People would be wondering why isn't the extra money arriving into football in Ireland.

Or would he slowly trickle-truth to the public with stuff like "it makes more sense to pay the last of the debt over a longer period so we can put more money into football now".


I hope there's a good book released about JD someday, though I think perhaps he might exercise the libel laws to prevent it.

The man wanted to be a celebrity, not an administrator. The luvvie articles in Sindo, paying Nadia Forde to dance with him, parading his girlfriend around with him at football events, the birthday parties, throwing his tie into the crowd. You know, in most countries the football fans would probably be hard-pressed to name the CEO of the national football body - yet everyone in Ireland knew Delaney.

He was a terrible CEO for the sport. I'm not just talking about the corrupt "where does the money go" side of things, but actually running the organisation and making decisions. Take the 10-year tickets for example, good article here about those tickets, a shambles of mistakes:
- ISG offered them €75 million up front to do the ticket sales, but the FAI thought they could do a better job themselves
- The whole plan was built on getting Ireland's millionaires to pay €1,200-€3,300 PER YEAR when we only play about 3 competitive fixtures at home each year. He had some mad notion that millionaires scale their spending up for even simple things like a game against Gibraltar, rather than buying a ticket on Ticketmaster like everyone else.
- Ticket sales so slow that FAI employees were told to make lists of prospective clients
- There were 10,000 seats to sell - there's no info on how many they did sell, there was a lot of heavy discounting, one estimate is of 3,000 sales but theres plenty of cancelled orders. They never came close to selling even half of them at full price.


I think the man was desperately insecure. He was only good at one thing, parish-pump politics with the grassroots clubs that supported him. He was an incompetent failure as a CEO and administrator. He compensated heavily by trying to create a celebrity aura around himself with the stuff he got up to, and used that as an excuse to pay himself big money. If you create a cult of personality and silence all doubters then you can have a pretty good run. He got cocky with that €100k loan and that was his downfall. The lads from the Sunday Times were able to pull on that thread and unravel everything.

I'd say he is hurting now though, he wanted to be liked and adored for being John the Baptist. Now he'll only be remembered for an era of austerity and a lost generation of footballers that his mismanagement will usher in over the next few years.

The neckkkkk


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dundalkfc10 wrote: »

After Ross comments about the LOI, its time for the clubs to get together and try get a meeting with UEFA.

LOI fans were the only ones who always said the FAI and Delaney were corrupt and upto no good, now a possibility our league will be gone.

**** Irish football and **** every single ****er who went to Ireland games, supported this charade when they all knew Delaney was a corrupt ****er.

Shane Ross probably doesn't even know what the League of Ireland is so pay no attention to him.

I think there is a very high chance the FAI will be liquidated if we dont qualify for Euro 2020 .We will know that outcome by 31st March .

The money from that is probably the only real lifeline they have.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I would have thought the chances of them limping on until then without a bailout (Gov or UEFA) would be slim.

It seems the most likely outcome to me.
I wonder what the weekly/monthly costs are.for the FAI.
UEFA may keep them ticking over what with the Euros in Dublin and the team still in with a chance of qualifying

None of this is really overly shocking TBH apart from the figures involved.
There should be a discussion with UEFA and FIFA to see what the next steps are available to protect the game. But the FAI needs to be dissolved completely and then charges brought for any wrongdoing found (obviously this may be more difficult than it should be).
Being involved with the FAI at this stage is totally poison why would anyone want to be associated with it.
I wonder if there is a book in the offing "John Delaney - The man who killed Irish football" OR John Delaney - "He's not the Messiah he's just a very naughty boy"

Mahony0509 wrote: »

A lot of people seem to be attacking Ross over those LOI comments. I'm a massive LOI fan, club owner and season ticket member, and I cannot see anything wrong with his comments? He's dead right.
The LOI needs to break away immediately.

The only issue I have with his comments as an LOI fan and season ticket holder is his use of the word guess.

malinheader wrote: »

I'm definitely not defending John Delaney, totally despise the man for what he has done to football in this country but it seems the corruption and misuse of money must of been orchestrated by the whole organisation and possibly organisations supporting them.

I agree that the whole organisation is to blame but the man started out in the FAI in 2001 as treasurer and has essentially run the FAI since DEC 2004 that's a long bloody time to be in charge of something and I am sure there were reasons there were not too many dissenting voices in the organisation (which we can all read between the lines on)