A WEEKS-LONG, roiling public controversy that is the product of poor corporate governance and fuelled by a welter of Oireachtas Committee meetings which will culminate in a series of lengthy and enervating reviews…how relieved the FAI must have been to be skipping anonymously by the TV cameras outside Leinster House yesterday as the nation trained their sights on Ryan Tubridy and Noel Kelly instead.
An FAI delegation arrived at government buildings yesterday to meet with the Labour party ahead of today’s Dáil motion on the funding of football, and their anonymity on arrival might be a balm to RTE in proof that there is a life after the pitiless ventilation of dysfunctional management.
Today’s Dáil motion regarding investment in football was tabled by the Labour party, and while nothing concrete was agreed or achieved, it signified the FAI’s redeemed repute and their inching back into the conversation for money.
The FAI have made a very clear appeal for money in the form of their recent infrastructure report, in which they say they need €863 million over the next 15 years to bring facilities up to scratch.
Today’s motion called for the government to support that infrastructure report, and also to raise the betting tax from 2% to 3% and funnel some excess funding to the FAI. There was no firm commitment to write a cheque today, but the government also said they would not oppose the motion. So it’s obviously not a case of the government saying yes to the FAI’s demands…but they didn’t say no, either.
The theme of the day was that the FAI have finally taken their place among the competent sports governing bodies of the earth. “The FAI, as has been acknowledged across this House today”, concluded Labour’s Ged Nash, “has got its collective act together, and it is now time that the system responds.”
The motion was led by Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who opened with an authentic, historically-adept speech hanging on the framework that the sport is an emblem of the country.
“Football is partitioned because football is Ireland”, he said. “Football has been dogged with infighting and mismanagement because football is Ireland. Football people were brutalised in school because football is Ireland.”
(A later Freudian slip from Michael Lowry was an unwitting testimony to the veracity of this speech: “it has become the number one partition-participation team sport in the country.”)
The speech also passed Ronaldo is a cod into the Dáil records for the first time.
“We stand alone as a footballing nation. Maybe we are the only ones who think that Wes Hoolahan is a god, Ronaldo is a cod and Stephanie Roche was robbed for the goal of the year. Maybe we alone can tell a good player from a great player.”
(There is a sad lack of Eamon Dunphy’s better lines in the archive, despite the obvious utility of You’ve jumped over the fence, baby!)
In challenging the government to pony up, Deputy Ó Ríordáin said this is no longer the time for photo opportunities but that of “cold, hard cash”, paraphrasing Jack Charlton in promising he would be keeping the government under pressure.
Labour party TD Alan Kelly stood up next and zeroed in on the sports capital grant programme, claiming the CEO of Sport Ireland told him at a recent Public Accounts Committee meeting she had “no opinion” on the FAI’s infrastructure report. He then returned to an eternal theme that Sport Ireland should become a regulatory body as opposed to simply a promotional one, and called for more joined-up thinking with the Department of Sport on the topic of sports capital programme.
Minister Catherine Martin then stood up to accentuate what the State has given the FAI since rescuing it from financial “implosion”, totting it up at €62 million between 2019 and 2022 when Covid relief schemes are included. She said she applauded the motivation behind the motion but said she wanted to broaden the debate to the funding of all sports, before delivering the line that has given the FAI most encouragement today.
She prefaced reference to the betting levy by saying it is an issue for the Finance minister and repeated the fact it is not strictly ringfenced for the Horse and Greyhound Fund (although the Department of Agriculture said in May the betting tax forms “part of this policy picture”) before saying, ” I would, of course, support any measures, such as an increase in the betting levy, which could in turn feed in to increased funding for sport more generally.”
This was evidence for the FAI’s top brass that their lobbying efforts on the betting tax are slowly pushing their way to new frontiers. Later in the debate, Michael Lowry supported the FAI’s infrastructure plan but rebuked them over challenging the Horse and Greyhound Fund. “The FAI has a strong case that stands on its merit”, he said, “but it is a mistake for it to criticise the racing fund and seek to divert part of it.”
Minister for State Thomas Byrne – who has assumed primary responsibility for sport – defended the sports capital grant programme, saying every soccer application received last year was granted under the latest round of funding. He described the FAI’s infrastructure plan as “ambitious”, to which Ged Nash replied by saying not so, that is merely what is needed to bring Irish football in line with standards across Europe.
He ended by saying it is time to move away from ‘olé, olé, olé’ to ‘okay, okay, okay’ when it comes to backing our ambitions for our game.”
For the FAI, this was a positive progress report on their journey down a torturous road to being taken seriously again.