Let Me Tell You: Series 2 Ep 3: It will take some time to see a healthy FAI, says Catherine Murphy
The FAI's offices at the National Training Centre in Abbotstown, Dublin. Picture: Matt Browne/Sportsfile
There are "signs of life" that issues at the FAI have been resolved, but it will "take some time to see a healthy football association", Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy says.
Ms Murphy was speaking on the latest episode of the Let Me Tell You podcast which focuses on the issues surrounding the FAI set off by the revelation that CEO John Delaney provided a €100,000 loan to the association in 2017.
The loan was first revealed by the in March 2019. Mr Delaney sought and failed to get an injunction preventing its publication.
He said this loan was for a “very short-term cash flow issue” but refused to answer further questions at the Oireachtas Sports Committee, a decision that Ms Murphy, who was a member of the committee, says left her "unimpressed".
While the Sports Committee was unable to get answers, Mr Delaney would leave the FAI later that year and has been involved in lengthy and complicated proceedings which arose out of the Office of Director of Corporate Enforcement's seizure of 280,000 documents from the FAI's offices covering a 17-year period, in February 2020.
Ms Murphy told the that the FAI under Mr Delaney needed to be "brought down to rebuilt" and lays the responsibility firmly at Mr Delaney's feet.
"I think at the grassroots level you're seeing a lot of [improvement]. We've seen the women's side of things dramatically improve. Some of that's got to do with even things like the gesture in relation to making sure that men and women are paid equally when they're playing at the international level. I think it's easier to get sponsorship for the women's game. You're starting to see things like that changing.
"I think it'll take some time before we really see a healthy football association. You can only invest in an organisation that you're fully confident in and it was necessary for that to happen. It had to be brought down to really rebuild. John Delaney was the one that brought it down really in my opinion."
Ms Murphy said the FAI's problems over the recent years "show what happens if you don't govern an organisation" but that she now "sees a good future" for the FAI and football in Ireland.
She said she had felt that Mr Delaney was "politicking" in his role as CEO of the FAI and "played the schoolboy section" off against others in the association.
"He probably was a multiplicity of things, but the one thing that this was all about was John Delaney. For me, he wasn't acting in the interests of the FAI."
Asked about what was achieved on the day, Ms Murphy said the appearance highlighted the "dysfunction" at the heart of the association at the time. She added that the fact that Honorary Treasurer Eddie Murray said the association had one bank account when the number was later clarified as being 24, was proof of this.
