TD questions Delaney’s €100k ‘bridging loan’ to FAI
Why a national sporting body needed a €100,000 bridging loan from its chief executive, when it received in the region of €50m state funding over a 10-year period, is a key question John Delaney must answer when he appears before an Oireachtas committee.
That is according to Robert Troy, Fianna Fáil’s spokesman on transport, tourism, and sport, following weekend revelations that Mr Delaney provided the FAI with a €100,000 cheque in April 2017.
The FAI says the loan was required to aid cashflow and was repaid in full.
Mr Troy said there are “serious questions to be answered”, namely why the FAI needed a loan when it received circa €50m state funding between 2008 and 2018, along with commercial contracts, gate receipts, and international funding.
He said the FAI’s governance code “explicitly outlines the need for openness and transparency”, yet it had sought a high court injunction to stop a story related to the loan being published in The Sunday Times.
Mr Troy said there was “also no disclosure of the loan in the FAI accounts which in itself is a breach of the 2014 Companies Act”.
The FAI last night issued a statement in which it reiterated that the loan was a bridging loan, “made in the best interests of the FAI” at a time when it was experiencing “a short-term cash flow issue”.
It said the FAI board had been kept fully informed “in relation to this matter at all times”.
The statement referred to an ongoing review of the FAI’s executive governance and senior management structures, and said this would be completed “and all actions approved by early April when a full press conference will be held to reveal all outcomes”.
Mr Delaney is due to appear before the Oireachtas sports committee next month. He has previously said:
We look forward to appearing before the committee and we will happily address any matters that they would like to raise with the FAI.
Mr Delaney, at the helm of Irish football for more than 13 years, receives an annual salary of €360,000.
