Time for the Dark Prince to Retreat to the Shadows

“One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived”
Niccolo Machiavelli , The Prince

This Sunday sees the finale of the domestic football season as Derry City and St Patrick’s Athletic meet in the FAI cup final. We should be reflecting on what has been a successful season, one that saw no asterisks on the league table to denote the off field financial troubles of the recent past, some good football, a few bright spots in Europe (albeit a few low ones too), Sligo’s development of the Showgrounds and a title race that ended in a winner takes all showdown. Add in a recent upturn in the form of the national team under O’Neill and you could be forgiven for thinking things aren’t so bad.

Alas, as always seems to be the case with the FAI, things aren’t so. While many of us were in or focused on Oriel Park, the FAI was sending out an email telling hundreds of loyal fans that they would not be receiving a ticket for next months crunch Euro 2016 qualifier in Glasgow. Just to clarify, they were using the biggest day of their league season as a smokescreen. I am sure they were very much aware of the ticket situation earlier in the day, but they also knew that anyone interested in Irish football, including the media, were watching the game. Anyway, it would have all blown over by Tuesday, wouldn’t it?
The problem here is the majority of those who had been in Georgia the month before and had beaten the well worn track to such popular tourist destinations as Yerevan, Torshavn and even Limerick in recent years, were not entirely pleased to be told ‘ hard luck’ by an association too indolent to have come up with any sort of fair ticketing system. Much of this comes down to one man, the dark prince of Irish football, Mister John Delaney.

John Delaney is the sort of man who can thrive only in Ireland and is one reason I laugh when people tell me to keep politics out of sport. Our Dear Leader is every bit the parish pump politician. Like many Irish politicians he got a leg up through nepotism, his late father was ousted from his position as FAI Honorary treasurer over his unorthodox ticket dealings in the 90’s.(http://www.soccer-ireland.com/irish-football-history/merriongate.htm )He has kissed babies and shook hands in a manner that would make Bertie Aherne proud and created a cult of personality that I don’t think any other FA chief in Europe has ever had or wanted. He spends his trips abroad with the national team in the ambassadorial role of fulfilling a stereotype, drinking until all hours of the morning and buying the hardcore supporter’s silence in the form of continental lager. While his personal life should remain just that, it is Delaney himself who is behind its’ exposure. He has recently been flaunting his new, blonde and seemingly much younger girlfriend on TV chat shows and to the paparazzi. Sometimes it really feels like Larry David is scripting his life.
Then of course there is the question, asked of many an Irish back bencher over the years, what does he do? One thing he does very well, as you would expect from a man with a background in accountancy is to use abstract figures to hide behind. Lies and statistics, smoke and mirrors. When talking of increased turnover he always seems to refer to the mid 90’s. I mean everything has gone up since the mid 90s, including expenditure, a disproportionate amount of which is his salary. He then creatively points out, with not one shred of evidence, he has turned down offers to earn far more elsewhere. Personally I would love to meet these people; I feel they may be a soft touch.

Delaney defends his wages by talking of the financial achievements made during his tenure, but what about on the pitch? That is after all where football is played.
This very season he referred to his national league as a ‘problem child’. It cannot be pointed out enough that this is a league with an entire prize fund of 241,500 euro and costs 19000 Euro to enter. With the champions getting 100k of the prize pot, you don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to realise that some clubs will lose money just by entering. I somehow feel compelled to point out his salary again, 360000 Euro. League sponsorship and as a result, prize money has decreased in the past 4 years, but that was the recession you see and has nothing to do with the increased revenue he has made elsewhere. The fact he has done absolutely nothing to help market the league, is also irrelevant. Right now should be a good time to promote Irish football yet I would estimate the crowd on Sunday to be around a third of the 36k that attended in 2010. I will even be surprised if Dear Leader makes it himself, his beloved Man United are on the telly after all.
He clearly views the FAI as a vessel for the current Irish national team and little else. The lack of player development hammers this home. We are still reliant on our Diaspora or the IFA (not the farmers, the real IFA) to develop our players. I don’t think he has ever even discussed the matter, it isn’t on his agenda. He is quite happy to leave the Dublin and District Schoolboys league have a strangle hold of youth football in this country. The sole aim of DDSL clubs has never been player development but quite simply, British sterling.
There is no structure to Irish football from the top down. It is such a farce that some coaches have to leave the state to get certain qualifications. If we can’t coach the coaches, how can we coach the players? The so called ‘Coaching Pathway’ stopped a long way short of where it should lead.
Also, not one player has emerged form the ‘emerging talent’ programme that has been around for ten years or so now. A programme that not only catches players too late, even if they have started catering for under 11s recently, but seems to reinforce all the problems of Irish underage football. It values the physical side of the game over the technical and far too much emphasis is placed on competitiveness over development.

It is now ten years since Delaney took the leading role in Irish football. He can point at a stadium we are still paying back and very minor successes with the national team all he likes, as a footballing nation we have stood still or possibly even regressed. In this period his salary has been higher than those in similar positions in Spain, Germany and Italy. He has manipulated small clubs at grassroots level into supporting him and even naming pitches after him and bought train loads of drink to trick supporters of the national team. He has also managed to wrap several sections of the media around his finger; he gives them a little bit of the glitz and glamour you don’t expect from a football administrator, they gave him a eulogising video styling him as the Godfather of Irish football. If anyone unfamiliar with Irish football were to see it, they would believe it was Steve Coogan at his brilliant best.

It is frustrating that what has brought him to question in the mainstream media is a matter that seems trivial in the greater scheme of things. Sure, there needs to a restructuring of how away match tickets are allocated and I am glad that he is being pulled up on his laughable attempts to pass the blame onto the Scottish FA, but when you consider his apathy towards our league and the pathetic attempts at developing youth football, it seems insignificant. There would be a certain irony if it was to be ticket distribution that ended his involvement with Irish football, like father like son, but I think it will take more than that to remove this Prince.
The fire has been started and we can’t let it die out once Glasgow has come and gone, we have to make sure it stays lit.