WELL, IN THE end, it was all just a misunderstood joke.
For the avoidance of what the FAI might call a difference of interpretation, we refer not to the whole endeavour of Irish football here, but to the baroque explanation for how CEO Jonathan Hill ended up getting paid €11,500 in lieu of holiday days not taken.
The FAI are under probation, so when it emerged last year that Hill’s remuneration had exceeded his permitted salary under the terms of their State bailout, funding was frozen until the money was paid back.
It led to a brief blitz of unhelpful headlines about State funding and CEO pay, but it was complex and pretty small fry. The money was returned and Sport Ireland were quick to praise the amount of progress that had been made by Hill’s new regime since they started sifting through the wreckage of the whole operation. All good.
But alas, the FAI usually find a way to lose on the swings and on the roundabouts.
The problems have arisen not in the act but in the explanation. A payment in lieu of holidays is not permitted in the FAI handbook, but Hill explained how it came to him in language more passive than even Ireland’s style under Martin O’Neill.
Hill told an Oireachtas Sport Committee last December he was “part of a conversation” regarding a junior employee who sought cash in lieu of holiday days not taken. From there, “a conversation then ensued” involving the former chairman, former finance director, and current people and culture director “regarding the possibility of the same being granted to me”.
“I did not push it and I was not asking for it,” said Hill, but the money was paid to him and then returned when it turned out it caused the problem.
Colour Alan Dillon sceptical. He called it a “cock and bull story” and wanted to see the email chain from which the whole thing originated.
The Public Accounts Committee sent an invite to the FAI 21 days ago, and then rejected a request to postpone from today. The long wait for the emails went on and on, and were not submitted by the agreed deadline. Instead they landed to the committee at 11.28pm last night, and added to that, they were heavily redacted.
“Total redaction,” said Paul McAuliffe. Some nations prefer total football, but not us.
The FAI began with an apology from chairman Tony Keohane for the lateness of the documents, and Hill then provided a bit more detail on how it all came about.
He didn’t ask for the money but merely included a “throwaway line” in the email to the aforementioned junior employee, on which former finance director Alex O’Connell was copied.
The “throwaway line” was redacted on the email submitted to the committee but Hill was happy to read it out under questioning:
“Can you negotiate the same for me please, exclamation mark, question mark.”
Hill said in his opening statement that Alex O’Connell “evidently regarded this as a request”, so O’Connell took it to chairman Roy Barrett, who granted the money. This is despite the fact Barrett sought advice from HR expert Liz Joyce, who is an independent member of the FAI board.
In an email dated 6 December 2022 that was submitted to the committee, Joyce wrote:
“Normally it is bad practice to allow employees to cash in holidays as there is a statutory requirement to ensure employees take a minimum of 20 days holidays and this is the employers legal responsibility to ensure adequate breaks are taken. It would be important to ensure that any exceptions have clear grounds for being so and don’t create unhelpful precedent.”
Hill said he wasn’t privvy to any of this process.
So this wasn’t another episode of the FAI shooting themselves in the foot. They may have pointed the gun at their foot and put their finger on the trigger, but the trigger then appears to have interpreted this action as a formal request to shoot.
Hill maintains this “throwaway line” was a joke, and one that was apparently interpreted as a formal request from the leader of the organisation.
Cormac Devlin told Hill it was a good job he didn’t joke about wanting a private jet, given it seems it would have been granted. (It’s a pity there haven’t yet been any throwaway lines about hiring Lee Carsley.)
This morning the FAI made available the email chain behind the decision to pay their CEO for annual leave that was not taken. Within this email is the reasoning why circumstances were so unique that the org deviated from their own HR polices, best practice for employee rest and… pic.twitter.com/jZH8jvxTBX
— Paul McAuliffe TD (@PaulMcauliffe) February 22, 2024
Some committee members weren’t buying Hill’s explanation, with Dillon saying it wasn’t credible.
If it the whole story hinges on this “throwaway line”, why did the FAI redact the line in the email to the committee? If they were comfortable reading it into the record, why not just allow the committee to read it too?
The FAI’s rationale for the redaction of the email was to protect the identity of the junior employee, a noble and decent intention. But did they really have to redact everything else in the email? As chairman Brian Stanley asked, would it not have been sufficient just to redact the employee’s name?
But even if every other line of the email had to be redacted, why not allow the committee to read the one line the FAI were legally confident of reading out?
Let’s just say this was an opportunity missed to add a bit of transparency to an explanation of which committee members were sceptical. At one point, Hill had to deny that the “throwaway line” was in fact phrased, “I’ll have some of that.” Hill sounded mildly affronted at the question, but the FAI could of course have avoided it by simply showing their workings to the committee.
The emails show Hill missed another opportunity to clear up the supposed misinterpretation of his joke. This aspect to the story wasn’t discussed by the committee, but we have subsequently reviewed the emails.
The “throwaway line” email was sent at 10.25am on Tuesday 15 November 2022.
On Monday 19 December 2022, Jonathan Hill sent an email to Alex O’Connell and to a person whose name is redacted.
The email had ‘Annual Leave Days ‐ 2022′ in its subject line.
After clarifying some questions about leave days he had taken, Hill wrote, “Alex – happy to carry over or what are the alternatives?”
O’Connell replied, “I think we’re looking to try pay them (as per your request) however would go through Roy for approval (via Aoife) so let me know if that’s ok with you?”
Hill replied one minute later with a single word: “perfect.”
In this email, the request Alex O’Connell alludes to may solely be that of the junior employee. But given the context, why did Jonathan Hill not use this opportunity to clarify things? He could have replied to Alex O’Connell to say his request for pay in lieu of holiday days was just a throwaway remark, and not a formal request?
It is possible Hill made this clarification in another email or in another way, but such an email was not submitted to PAC today, and Hill made no reference to making any further clarification to O’Connell. Instead, he said the process continued without his knowledge.
O’Connell and Aoife Rafferty didn’t attend today, despite the fact they were invited. Tony Keohane said the FAI believed the day’s delegation was the appropriate selection to explain what had happened. Alan Dillon called this a “misjudgement”, saying O’Connell and Rafferty were “key witnesses”.
Meanwhile, president Paul Cooke conceded that his confidence in Hill has been affected by these events, but Keohane gave Hill his support, admitting the FAI had suffered reputational damage in all of this.
Which of course it has.
The FAI have launched a library of glossy plans and policies in the last couple of years, seeking badly-needed government funding into their crumbling facilities and pitiful professional architecture. Episodes like today undermine the image of the FAI’s credibility in asking for this money. How can they not meet such basic levels of transparency as not redacting a key line in an email which led to the erroneous payments of €11,500?
But it was all because of a misunderstood joke.
Tell that to the fans going to games in wrecked grounds, or to the kids whose games are rained off because of bad pitches. Or to the talented kids who are losing contact hours, or the professionals trying to make a living in precarity. Or to the volunteers and coaches and clubs and leagues who are desperately waiting for some investment to arrive and make all of their lives easier.
They’ve seen this joke too often before, because they are the butt of it.