How John Delaney Ruined Irish Football

saipan which is the largest of the northern mariana islands is around seven and a half thousand miles from dublin saipan and the northern mariana islands in general are extremely isolated a tropical paradise the eastern shore of saipan is home to steep rocky cliffs and a coral reef meanwhile you will find spectacular sandy beaches and a large lagoon on the island's west coast saipan is cited in the guinness book of world records as having the least year-round temperature variation of any land mass on earth but the primary reason for the island's historic significance in the last few hundred years at least lies in its close proximity to japan during world war ii saipan was considered to be one of the empire of japan's last lines of defense making the battle of saipan one of the most significant and also one of the most deadly battles to take place in the pacific on june 15 1944 71 000 american troops invaded the island when nearly 30 000 japanese soldiers have been stationed over the next 24 days the u.s suffered over 13 000 casualties three and a half thousand of which were deaths meanwhile only 921 japanese servicemen were taken as prisoners of war the rest totaling almost 30 000 in addition to at least 22 000 civilians were either killed by the americans or committed suicide which accounted for 88 of saipan's civilian population certainly hundreds and most likely thousands left to their deaths from saipan's rocky clifftops one of which is now known as suicide cliff and serves as a memorial to victims of the battle these days the northern mariana islands and therefore saipan island forms part of the united states's commonwealth and individuals born in saipan are considered to be citizens of the united states though they are not allowed to vote in federal elections however it is still saipan's close proximity to japan that makes it relevant at least to supporters of ireland's national football team prior to 2002 most people in ireland had never heard of saipan or the northern mariana islands nor had they ever heard of john delaney but all that would change in the build up to what remains the most recent fifa world cup that the republic of ireland's men's team have played in the fai reportedly chose saipan as an initial base in the build-up to the 2002 world cup due to its isolation and surroundings the idea was supposedly for ireland's players to relax with some light training and have a bit of a break following a grueling season before heading off to a more intense training camp in japan to prepare for the group stages however ireland's captain and the national team starman roy keane wasn't particularly impressed with the laid-back attitude or the facilities that the fai had put on in preparation for world football's biggest tournament his displeasure led to an enormous argument with mick mccarthy the sorkins sent home and the manchester united legend would never get the chance to play in another world cup amidst this crisis which was of huge significance in ireland john delaney emerged as a media savvy executive who came across as a safe pair of hands delaney would become an almost messianic figure within the fai leading the organization as though he were ruling his own chieftain over the next two decades delaney went from being the fai and irish football's supposed saviour to being widely considered as the architect of its destruction and downfall taking over an organization at its lowest ebb and somehow plunging it into even greater depths through his own ego maniacal pursuit of fame acclaim and cold hard cash this is the story of john delaney and the destruction of irish football in 2014 the irish independent produced a short documentary film entitled john the baptist which detailed john delaney's rise from a humble accountant at a struggling bakery in temporary all the way to being the modernizer who guided irish football administration out of the dark ages you can watch that documentary all 30 minutes and 19 seconds of it and full on youtube should you wish and if you were to do so you would most likely be left thinking by the end that john delaney was a man who could heal the sick raise the dead and make the football association of ireland debt free the last of those three accomplishments might just be the trickiest of the lot and it also just so happens to be the only one the delaney promised to do in real life the film opens with dennis o'brien who was the third wealthiest person in ireland at the time making the now infamous statement that quote john delaney could run anything as far as i can uh you know john delaney could run uefa easily he could run fifa as far as i'm concerned certainly better than seth blatter and more honestly end quote obreen is someone who we will return to a little later on along with his possible significance in terms of that film even being made but whilst that quote will seem laughable to any irish football fans watching now and to all of you by the end of this video if you are entirely unfamiliar with john delaney it was once a fairly widely held one at least in certain circles john delaney was born in waterford but his family relocated to temporary whilst he was still a young child and that is where delaney grew up and started out in business at a local bakery named irish pride the documentary andalaini himself appeared to be keen to portray the fai chief as being a man of humble beginnings who worked his way up through the world of business before landing the top job with an association football in ireland they neglect to mention the fact that his father joe delaney was formerly the treasurer of the fai the exact same job that john took when he was first elected by the fai in 2001. joe delaney was involved in a fairly major scandal while serving as treasurer of the fai in the 1990s when it emerged that the fai had bought hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of tickets for group games at the 1990 world cup in italy and at the 1994 world cup in the united states that might not seem that strange after all ireland competed in both tournaments but many of the tickets that the fai had bought were for games that didn't involve ireland the plan according to joe delaney once the story broke in 1996 was to purchase tickets for games island wert involved in and then to use those tickets as a bargaining ship to barter for more tickets for ireland fans for ireland games this was a process joe claimed that was common for national football associations to participate in in the build up two world cups unfortunately whether that is true or not things didn't work out quite so well for the fai with their non-island ticket purchasing practice generating a reported loss of 154 000 pounds in 1990 and 210 000 pounds in 1994. you would have thought that after things didn't work out quite so well at italian 90 that if this were a legitimate business practice you might knock it on the head ahead of the next world cup the supposedly london-based greek tickets out who had apparently made off with the fai's money had a couple of different alliances including theo severiades and tio marcos though despite efforts made by the media no one could ever track theo teo or whatever his name was down leading to one or two questions over whether he was a real person at all either way joe delaney ended up repaying a reported 210 000 pounds in compensation to the football association of art john delaney followed in his father's footsteps in more ways than one and i'm not just alluding to scandals in addition to becoming treasurer of the fai his first role in football after reportedly founding three successful businesses outside of the sport was to join the board of directors at waterford united a board that his father joe had also previously sat on before the family relocated waterford provided delaney jr with his springboard into football administration but as i alluded to in the introduction it was really the saipan incident in 2002 involving roy keane that rarely brought him to national prominence if you are not irish or were not yet following football in 2002 it is difficult to fully emphasize the significance of saipan within ireland it is no exaggeration to say that roy keane was one of the best footballers on the planet in 2002. he was ireland's captain he was manchester united's captain and he was at the peak of his powers keane had made the pfa team of the year for three seasons in a row he was the fbi's player of the year in 2001 and he was manchester united's player of the year in 1999 and 2000. he was also famously committed driven and hardworking as much so in training as he was on a match day and on many occasions prior to 2002 keane had complained about the amateurishness of the fai and the lack of professionalism surrounding the national team he felt that there was an attitude of little old ireland turning up and giving it a good go keen meanwhile had told alex ferguson before heading off to south korea and japan that he was going out there to win it for ray keane there was no other way news that ireland's camp in saipan was primarily for r r then meaning rest and recreation wasn't all that warmly received things had got off to a bad start after ireland's players had flown all the way out to saipan and coach or economy meanwhile fai directors enjoyed all the luxuries of first class travel but they were compounded by allen's training pitch which keen described as resembling a car park though keane was persuaded not to just pack up his bags and fly back to ireland once that didn't stop him passing his complaints onto the irish press and when his manager mick mccarthy confronted him in front of the rest of the island squad keane didn't hold back in letting him know exactly what he thought of him when keem was sent home almost every household and office in ireland was divided down saipan lines disagreeing over whether he had been right or wrong and who was at fault him mccarthy or the fai appearing on rte as a treasurer of the fai delaney wasn't part of the island camp and was available for media duties he appeared on television screens across ireland as a calming voice and to a lot of people a voice of reason delaney was able to remove himself from the arena of conflict pointing out that as treasurer he only controlled the fai's finances and not any footballing matters while still weighing in with his own views over what had happened from that point on delaney was in the ascendancy and rarely did he shy away from the television cameras in november 2004 the fai ceo fran rooney departed in acrimonious circumstances just 18 months into his three-year contract with the organization following disagreements over his management style by the end of the month delaney had been appointed as rooney's replacement becoming the fair's interim chief executive when delaney took the job most people did expect it to be on an interim basis until a three or four month process to bring in an external appointment had been completed but after a short list of eight candidates was compiled delaney rapidly became the favorite during his time as interim ceo delaney had managed to secure a multi-million euros sponsorship deal with umbro to manufacture ireland's national team kits which have been viewed favorably by the board it must be said that when john delaney became ceo of the fai both on an interim and then on a permanent basis he did inherit a pretty rotten institution of all of the governing bodies with an irish sport the fai has frequently been by far the most poorly run and delaney came in during the midst of yet another crisis saipan was still an incredibly divisive issue that was fresh in everyone's minds but even more immediately delaney had unresolved sponsorship deals with aircom and fiat to sort out and the fai had developed an incredibly fractured relationship with the irish government under the previous chief executive fran rooney ireland sports minister john o'donoghue had been scathing in his criticism of the fai and had threatened to remove government funding of the organization unless they could resolve their internal disputes in fairness to delaney he did resolve some of those issues he was able to strike a number of important deals for the fai and his confidence in his own abilities rubbed off on those around delaney created it all around himself that he was the only man capable of fixing irish football and a great many people especially those around him within the fai believed him the most significant project of delaney's tenure as ceo of the fai was his role in the demolition of lansdowne road which had been the home of irish football since 1971 an irish rugby since 1872 and the construction of what would come to be known as the aviva stadium a state-of-the-art 51 700-seater arena which was built at a cost of 410 million euros and is one of only 27 stadiums given category 4 status by uefa the aviva stadium was funded jointly by the fai the irfu and the irish government but whilst the irfu and the irish governments were able to finance their portion of the stadium's construction as planned it turned out that the fai was still servicing enormous amounts of debt and had to take on a great deal more to fund the construction of the new ground delaney's stated ambition had been to repay this debt in large part through the sale of a series of packages for republic of ireland home games this was known as the vantage club and it worked a bit like club wembley if any of you are familiar with the scheme's english equivalent inasmuch as it offered the long-term purchase of premium seats at ireland's new home ground much like club wembley the vantage club was horrifically overpriced unlike at wembley when it first opened at least those packages would not be sold whilst the irf you who have a lengthy list of guaranteed annual rugby fixtures sold their vip packages at a flat rate of 15 000 euros for 10 years delaney planned on selling the fai's packages which could sometimes contain as few as one home game in an entire calendar year for 12 000 euros for the cheapest seats behind the two goals and 32 000 euros for tickets closer to the halfway line delaney had banked on the vantage club ticket sales combined with the stadium's naming rights covering the fai's 74 million euro commitment to the stadium's construction people were aghast when the price plans were announced an uptake was so low that the fai switched to a direct debit scheme which meant that supporters wouldn't have to commit to a 12 000 or 32 000 euro fee up front and would also therefore be able to cancel at any time unfortunately the aviva stadium opened in 2007 and the following year the us housing bubble burst lehman brothers collapsed and there was a global financial crisis which hit ireland particularly hard consequently an enormous amount of ireland's gdp was wiped out and loads of people decided that spending tens of thousands of pounds to watch a few ireland football games didn't seem like such a smart financial decision anymore it is worth stressing that the fair's pricing structure for the vantage club under john delaney was always absurd and demand would never have repaid the 74 million euros that they had spent but the financial crisis certainly further compounded the problem and plunged the organization into an even deeper financial black hole throughout his entire time as ceo of the fai as far as i can tell the pricing plans for the vantage club when the aviva stadium opened is the only thing that john delaney has actually held his hands up in regard to and admitted that he got things wrong and even that took him a decade when the fai unveiled their updated 10-year vip packages renamed club island in 2019 the most expensive 10-year ticket was priced at 5 000 euros less than 16 of the previous schemes prices and that is without factoring in a decade's worth of inflation not only did the stadium packages stadium sponsorship and general ticket sales failed to cover the fai's 74 million euro outlay in building the aviva stadium the fai and the irfu both have to pay 200 000 euros a month each for the maintenance of the ground which is considerably more than the fair recoup from hosting fixtures at the aviva over the course of a year consequently the fai is losing money constantly on the aviva stadium on top of their enormous initial investment although many irish football and rugby fans have complained about the difficulty of generating an atmosphere there that resembles the one that they could create at lansdowne road the aviva stadium is an impressive venue and it was chosen by uefa to host the europa league final in 2011. the showpiece event for the ground however was to be the four fixtures that the stadium was awarded a uefa's cross-continent euro 2020. john delaney always appeared to be keen to impress the bigwigs at uefa with speculation that he was eyeing a senior role within the organization and indeed he did later join uefa's executive committee euro 2020 would present a great opportunity for ireland to welcome the great and good of european football to dublin and for delaney personally to exhibit how far irish football had come on his watch the icing on the cake he hoped would be ireland's qualification for the tournament having qualified for the last two european championships which would be worth almost 10 million euros to the cash-strapped fai and would also guarantee that the republic of ireland would play at least two games of euro 2020 in dublin not only did ireland fail to qualify for the euros losing their qualification play-off semi-final against slovakia on penalties but the aviva stadium wouldn't actually host any games at euro 2020 in the midst of the ongoing cover 19 pandemic the government of ireland and the dublin city council refused to provide the fai with any assurances that the aviva stadium would actually be allowed to host crowds of any number for the tournament and when the fai relayed this message to uefa dublin's four scheduled fixtures which included three group games and one quarter final were reallocated to the russian city of saint petersburg delaney had been stripped of his showpiece event the fai have been deprived of 10 million euros through their failure to qualify and the fact that ireland failed to qualify for euro 2020 served as yet further evidence of the actual national team's enormous decline since delaney took office as ceo by this time however the aviva stadium losing its euro 2020 hosting rights was far from the biggest of john delaney's problems whilst delaney had always talked a good game ever since the vantage club fiasco and the financial crisis there had been concerns about the fai's finances delaney was keen to maintain that all was in order the fai had never been in better financial shape and that he was still working wonders year on year in interviews and press conferences delaney repeated the phrase debt free by 2020 as though it was some kind of sacred mantra in the fai's efforts to reduce the debt a number of cost-cutting measures were introduced including staff cuts and salary reductions which brought rather a large amount of scrutiny on delaney's own financial remuneration from the fai in 2012 it emerged that john delaney had been paid 431 687 euros by the fai in 2010 and whilst he took a pay cut down to a measly 400 000 euros in 2011 in what can only be described as a profound act of solidarity with those who were losing their jobs or taking pay cuts on much more modest salaries that still made delaney one of the highest-paid executives in all of world football delaney was being paid more than the president of the united states of america for the job of overseeing irish football more than twice as much as ireland's prime minister and 250 000 euros more than the chief executives of the spanish and italian football associations which are far larger countries with far larger football associations in addition to being paid a salary that peaked at 430 000 euros a year before plateauing at 360 000 euros following a 1.8 million euro contract that he signed in 2014 delaney also racked up some considerable expenses on the fai's behalf his rent allowance alone was reportedly worth 3 000 euros a month meanwhile the fai also covered 316 000 euros worth of delaney's legal fees relating to a defamation suit surrounding the 2016 rio olympics ticketing scandal and a further 200 000 euros in unrelated legal fees in total according to an unpublished report commissioned by the irish state in the last five years as chief executive of the fai alone the organization picked up the bill for almost 1 million euros of delaney's personal expenditure on top of his 360 000 euro a year salary it is worth noting that the reports also point out that delaney repaid some of that money to the fai and they calculated that his excess benefit taking those repayments into account was 724 thousand 629 euros and 42 cents again that is only in delaney's last five years as the fbi ceo he held that position for 15 years one of the aspects of john delaney's leadership of the fai that often received plaudits was his commitment to grassroots football rarely would delaney miss the opportunity to emphasize his love of the game from top to bottom and his passion for the grassroots game grassroots appeared to be one of his many buzzwords and it must be said delaney certainly spent a lot of time trekking around ireland visiting clubs opening new facilities and working with the john jars foundation even when the tide started to turn regarding the job that many people thought delaney had done as ceo of the fai he retained a lot of support from community level football clubs and their administrators in truth whilst no one could doubt john delaney's willingness to travel around ireland and cut ribbons the grants that the grassroots game in alan received from the fai on its watch don't seem to have done irish football much good whilst these things inevitably take time manchester city have only recently started to reap the rewards of their investment in youth team football john delaney became the fai ceo at a time when ireland had premier league stars such as roy keane robbie keane damian duff shay given john o'shea and richard dunn in their squad ireland were ranked 12th in the world in the fifa world rankings in december 2004 ahead of the likes of uruguay germany and the reigning european champions greece now ireland's men's national team sits just inside the top 50 of the fifa world rankings sandwich between qatar and ecuador ireland's 2022 world cup qualifying campaign almost ended before it had even begun following three defeats in their opening three games against serbia luxembourg and portugal there are no stars in the irish national team anymore and a number of that players play their club football in league one the third tier of english football the republic of ireland is not a large country its population is somewhere in the region of 5 million people few people expect ireland therefore to win the euros or the world cup but they do expect them to beat luxembourg a country which is roughly the same size as dublin iceland a country of fewer than 400 000 people serves as a reminder of what a well-run football association can achieve the fai serves only as a lesson in failure and how not to run any governing body in 2009 john delaney made headlines for his vocal process stations after ireland lost a controversial world cup qualifier against france jew in large part to a very blatant theory on rehab ball that went unpunished following calls for the game to be replayed which didn't gain much traction outside of ireland delaney then lobbied fifa to let anna be the so-called team 33 of the 2010 world cup set blatter laughed at john delaney when he made that suggestion beginning a long-running feud between the duo and there was much controversy in ireland when it was revealed that delaney had accepted a 5 million euro settlement from fifa in agreement that they wouldn't pursue the matter any further when that news broke john delaney claimed that it was a brilliant deal for irish football and that they had done very well to get that much some people agreed others were less convinced and many have since pointed out the seeming irony of how many of delaney's criticisms of sepplata would now appear to be equally legitimate criticisms of him delaney certainly brought a sense of ambition to irish football the appointment of giovanni trapatoni who was among the most successful managers in the history of the european game was a significant departure from the more frugal appointments that the fbi had made under previous administrations even the appointment of martin o'neill and roy keane arguably the greatest irish manager and the greatest irish footballer of all time as a management team was viewed as being significant particularly since keane had previously been an outspoken critic of delaney's most notably following that sierra on rehabble delaney utilized some novel methods of financing the fai's operations during his time as ceo in 2016 for example the fai took 6.5 million euros from the sports retail business sports direct led by mike ashley in the form of a sponsorship deal sports direct logo subsequently became embossed on a number of irish national team training shirts but the deal with ashley's firm featured an unusual caveat which stated that sports directs could request that the fai paid back that 6.5 million euros at any time should they be unhappy with the arrangement essentially the sponsorship agreement functioned more like a loan which allowed the fai to repay some of their immediate bank loans but put them in debt to sports direct if or as was always going to be the case when mike actually asked for the money back sports direct did just that after delaney resigned as ceo and the fai is now paying the company 100 000 euros a month until that 6.5 million euros is repaid then there's the enormous amount of capital that the far received from dennis o'brien who was once ireland's richest person but now ranks fifth in that list with an estimated 4.3 billion net worth o'brien was until 2019 the largest newspaper proprietor in ireland and a number of people had expressed concerns about the degree of his control over ireland's media landscape you may recall that o'brien was the man who opened up the john the baptist film with the infamous quote john delaney could run anything and between 2008 and 2016 o'brien certainly gave him a big hand when it came to running the fai to the tune of 12 million euros o'brien was a big fan of delaney's and his tight grip of ireland's media ecosystem many have posited could have been one reason why delaney seemed to be portrayed in such a positive light by many irish media outlets the irish independent for example who commissioned that film that denis o'brien appeared in was owned by dennis o'brien at the time when you watch that film which i am reluctant to describe as a documentary you have to pinch yourself midway through to remind yourself that it is a film which has been commissioned about a football administrator not a legendary former player or manager a documentary about roy keane i could understand one about jack charlton absolutely john delaney the former treasurer and ceo of the fai whilst he was still in the job the whole thing is just fundamentally strange and dare i say a little bit cult-like it has been said that john delaney would very carefully craft all of his interviews and press conferences with suggestions that he would screen questions before actually filming them a number of journalists have said that even at the fair's agm an event which is ostensibly all about the fai's finances questions about the financial health of the fai and any ongoing scandals were frowned upon all john delaney wanted to hear was what a fantastic job he had done and how the fai was on course to be debt free by 2020 according to mark tai of the sunday times who broke a lot of these stories and authored a book entitled champagne football lifting the lid on a lot of what went on under delaney at the fai one security guard even told him that when ireland played the united states after delaney's relationship with supporters had severely soured delaney arranged for drummers to be at the aviva stadium and to begin striking their drums whenever any negative chance and delaney out chance began at the ground that is what a security guard told mark thai i should stress since delaney is notorious lilitichus but the extent to which delaney tried to craft his own image with the help of some high-profile contacts is why a lot of people find it very plausible john dolberg acton famously wrote in a letter to an anglican bishop that power tends to corrupt an absolute power corrupts absolutely john delaney had something very close to absolute power at the fai behaving with impunity for the best part of two decades whilst many football associations across europe were seeking to implement stricter term limits to prevent corruption and from people having jobs for life there the fai was doing the opposite for all of john delaney's talk about grassroots football in ireland he once referred to the league of ireland as a difficult child of the fai that in a country where 200 000 football fans travel to england to go and watch premier league games every season including delaney himself a manchester united fan and frequent visitor to old trafford's hospitality suites unsurprisingly those comments didn't go down very well one of the many things that john delaney received credit for during his time as ceo of the fai was in rebuilding his relationship with roy keane and appointing him as martin o'neill's assistant manager as i say keane had previously been highly critical of delaney and many felt the fbi's chief executive have been the bigger man in building those bridges for the betterment of irish football in reality according to some sources delaney was so keen to appoint o'neill and keen not solely for footballing reasons but for commercial ones o'neil and keane are big names in irish football and under the terms of their employment with the fai they would have to appear in fai commercials and advertising campaigns however when the fai actually approached martin o'neill about appearing in a credit union advert and he read the script he said that he wanted nothing to do with it the fai managed to convince o'neill and keen to film the advert but assured them that if they didn't like it they would be able to veto the video ever being used sure enough they filmed the advert o'neill hated it and he said that they couldn't use it in the end the fai ended up not only obviously not receiving any fee from the credit union but also having to cover all of their filming and production costs it was just a microcosm of the backwards thinking at the organization there are still those albeit in an ever-shrinking minority who think that john delaney did a good job as ceo of the fai certainly there are those who would argue that it wasn't all bad but whatever his talents may be of which his finest was surely self-promotion there is one story that seems to some john delaney up better than any other and it is the one that features in the introduction to champagne football when john delaney turned 50 years old in october 2017 he celebrated the landmark in style his girlfriend at the time emma english was a former model turned events planner and she helped to organize what was a pretty lavish james bond inspired birthday celebration the party featured a giant walter ppk ice sculpture bon's weapon of choice surrounded by martini glasses containing bonds favourite beverage shaken not stirred of course in total the party is reported to have cost some 80 000 euros paid for by the fai and with fai staff having worked to organize the event john delaney reimbursed the fai to the tune of 50 000 euros for his 50th birthday celebrations but that would still seemingly leave the fai 30 000 euros in the red on account of throwing a james bond themed birthday party i often talk about dictators and despots on this youtube channel and whilst i would like to clarify that i am not comparing john delany to saddam hussein or mohammed bin salman there is a striking resemblance when it comes to some of the stories that you hear about delaney and the lavish culture that seems to have surrounded him at the fai whilst the organization struggled desperately for cash his reign was ultimately undone when it was discovered that he had personally lent the fai 100 000 euros questions of why delaney was lending the organization such as some at a time when the fai was struggling to pay for the under 21 travel expenses suggested that the association's finances might not have been in quite as finest shape as delaney had sought to make out once that story broke revelation after revelation followed the funding of the aviva stadium may not have been john delaney's most egregious offense as ceo of the fai but it was certainly his most damaging and it is also a great metaphor for the entirety of his reign the aviva stadium is a very impressive facade it is a stadium worthy of an outstanding national team and national football organization but ireland has neither of those the country's football team flounders following two decades of decline and the organization is among the worst run in europe and that was how john delaney ran the fai as a facade he never tired of talking about his accomplishments and how the far's revenue had increased but the fbi's revenue rose in large part for two reasons one was inflation not just generally but in football as tv rights rose across the board and every uaf organization saw that form of their revenue increase john delaney would say that he played a key role in ua for reforming the way in which tv rates are distributed and that may be but it is still a distinction that is worth emphasizing the second was the fact that the fai was constantly being run on a knife edge consequently they were always underselling themselves few deals were as catastrophic as their arrangement with sports direct or as insane as the vantage club being expected to fund the aviva stadium but here there and everywhere they were discounting themselves in order to receive cash up front and consequently they were only ever kicking the can down the road in terms of financial ruin in january 2020 the far received a 50 million euro bailout from the irish government 30 million euros in the form of a loan along with a 20 million euro grant prior to that the association had been in 70 million euros of debt debt free by 2020 they absolutely were not in fact by almost every metric aside from revenue the fai was in a worse shape when john delaney was forced to step down than it had been when he inherited the association's numerous crises in 2004 in some respects that is an achievement in of itself just you know not a very good one irish football fans are left feeling as though they have just had a lost generation and are likely to have another one with no money to fund all of the crucial areas of coaching youth development and infrastructure required to progress football in a country whilst the aviva stadium stands like a beacon of power and modernity in ireland's capital city of dublin stadiums and facilities in the league of ireland are hidden away and continue to rot feeding off scraps of funding to keep going after john delaney resigned it was discovered that he would have been paid close to 3 million euros by the fai over the next three years had he managed to hang on that was made up of his 360 000 euro a year salary 285 714 euro a year pension contributions and assorted other benefits when his contract was terminated delaney did not receive the full amount of what he would have been paid given the circumstances though he still received a further 462 000 euros many people in ireland have been left enraged by the feeling that john delaney took irish football for a ride enriching himself in the process almost bankrupting the association and causing irreparable damage to the irish game without any form of retribution whatsoever and whilst even receiving an almost half a million euro parting gift delaney's ambition of being appointed by uefa was realized as he was elected by the organization's executive committee in april 2017. in january 2020 as the story of his time as the fai ceo continued to unravel he resigned with immediate effect delaney has since relocated to the united kingdom where he co-founded a short-lived consultancy firm named out perform now which was struck off the register last september for failing to publish their accounts the firm never traded that is it for today's video a lengthier one than usual i know but i hope that you enjoyed it thank you all very much as ever for watching hit the like button if that was the case and you did enjoy it let me know your thoughts down below in the comments and make sure you're subscribed and have notifications turned on for hitc-7s you can also find me on social media on either twitter or instagram via the username at hrtc7s on both should you wish to do so

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 291,049

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Ireland, John Delaney, Documentary, Ruined, Irish, FAI, Football Association of Ireland, Corruption, Money, Roy Keane, Saipan, World Cup, UEFA, FIFA, Sepp Blatter, HITC Sport, Scandal

Id: MbuN2mAeboc

Length: 39min 51sec (2391 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 21 2022