Shane Ross ‘happy’ to meet Noel Mooney

Shane Ross has said that he would be “very happy” to talk to Noel Mooney whose appointment as interim FAI general manager has been strongly opposed by the Sports Minister.

Shane Ross ‘happy’ to meet Noel Mooney

Shane Ross has said that he would be “very happy” to talk to Noel Mooney whose appointment as interim FAI general manager has been strongly opposed by the Sports Minister. That was about the only upbeat note struck yesterday in the increasingly frosty relationship between Government and the FAI, with the association later making it clear that it is standing by its on-loan Uefa man, meaning Mooney is set to begin his six-month spell as, effectively, the acting chief executive in Abbotstown, on Monday, as scheduled.

“I’d be very happy to talk to him if he wants to talk to me,” the minister said yesterday. “He hasn’t looked to talk to me. I’ve talked to the FAI about his appointment and I’ve talked to Uefa about his appointment. I’d be happy to talk to him but I have no plans. I haven’t asked to meet him and he hasn’t asked to meet me.”

The minister reiterated his recent calls for the FAI to reconsider bringing their former employee temporarily back on board while also revealing that Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin had told him in a recent telephone conversation that the appointment of Mooney had been made by the FAI, not Uefa.

However, despite the minister’s deep misgivings, the FAI are holding the line in relation to the Limerick man’s appointment, a statement issued last night reading in part: “The board of the FAI notes all comments made today by Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross.

The employment of any person by the FAI is a matter for the FAI and the Board welcomes the Minister’s acknowledgement of the autonomy of the FAI in this regard.

According to Minister Ross, when he recently met with FAI president Donal Conway and other directors of the association, they appeared to be taken aback by the strength of his opposition to Mooney’s appointment.

“They were somewhat surprised, and they didn’t respond particularly favourably,” he said.

“They went away to think about it.”

Asked if he expected that Mooney, as planned, would take up his new role on Monday, the minister replied: “I would hope that he would not but we will have to wait and see.”

Addressing the implications of Mooney’s appointment for the FAI’s already troubled relationship with government, he said: “It won’t help obviously if they appoint him to a position that we regard as helpful to corporate governance. Our funding is now suspended, the long-term capital structure fund. And it won’t help the restoration.

“What we want to see is reform and if we see reform then rapid restoration of those funds will happen. It happened with the OCI that funds were restored when their corporate governance was put into good shape and we want to see that as well.”

Last week’s telephone call between the minister and the Uefa president had to be cut short because of a bad telephone line between Dublin and Baku but the former said he plans to speak with the Uefa president again next week.

Also yesterday, Fergus O’Dowd, chair of the Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport, said that once the various ongoing investigations into the FAI’s governance and finances are complete, he expects that the association will be called to appear before another Oireachtas hearing.

On the anticipated timeline, he commented: “The minister said he expects to have some of his reports back by the end of June so obviously at the start of July we would expect to be in public session for whatever length of time that we need to be.”

Meanwhile, coinciding with his appearance as one of the speakers at the Irish Football Stakeholder Forum in the Mansion House, Niall Quinn oversaw the release of his Football in Ireland Visionary Group’s blueprint for reform and development of the game in Ireland.

As well as seeking to boost the game at grassroots, the plan’s more high-profile goals include “a viable and profitable” League of Ireland by 2026; a League of Ireland side to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League by 2027; qualification for the Women’s World Cup by 2027; winning an underage European Championship by 2032; and, for the senior men’s team, reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2038.

The whole project, said Quinn, now has to begin with the rebuilding of trust in the FAI.

“We are happy that the (Sport Ireland/FAI) Governance Review Group has looked at it, they’ve had it for some time. It all boils down to this. The (report of the) Governance Review Group, that’s a big date, the 21st of June, to see the recommendations, and then part two is whether the current incumbents, the old regime, can be brave enough to bring in a new way and a new opening. That there is it in a nutshell.

“All the glossy documents that have been handed in, all the lipstick that we have put on, all the talk and all the plans will be for nothing if we can’t make real change.”

The author of the report, Kieran Foley, a former League of Ireland player who was instrumental in the establishment of the Caribbean Cricket League, said that the crisis at the FAI has opened up new possibilities for Irish football.

“What’s happened now has created this wider discussion which we see as a huge opportunity and a great chance to say ‘hang on, football in this country should be much better’,” he said.

“We look at the national team and give out about an individual, which is the manager, and say the manager should get us better results. That’s not practical. We need to understand how we structure it.

“Every country which has ever done well in the last few years has reached one crucial point and they’ve been able to reform: look at Italy, France and Belgium. You can talk about Iceland. We’re in that position now and, really, either we are going to take this opportunity, grab it and run with it, with the right people, or we’re not.”

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