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LAST UPDATE | 30 Jan 2020
A REFINANCING ARRANGEMENT for the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) involving Bank of Ireland, the government and Uefa has been announced.
The FAI is currently saddled with debts of around €62 million and in need of an injection of around €18 million to remain solvent.
Minister Shane Ross said following a meeting today that they will be restoring Sport Ireland funding for football development programmes of €2.9 million annually, doubling this amount to €5.8 million each year from 2020 to 2023.
“€800,000 of that funding will support programmes that underpin the development of the men’s and women’s national leagues,” he said.
“We will also provide an interest-free loan of €2.5 million each year from 2020-2022. This is to safeguard our interest in the Aviva Stadium – where Ireland is hosting four games in the upcoming Euro 2020 Championships. This finance will be payable directly to the stadium operations company, and will be repayable from 2024 onwards.”
He said that: “All of these measures, taken together, will ensure that Irish football has a secure future.”
It means that the staff, players, coaches, volunteers, the schoolboy and girls clubs and the League of Ireland can feel reassured that we have their back and are supporting them to a brighter future. There will be no programmes of compulsory redundancies.
Ross described the news as a “new dawn for Irish football”. He said that it has been a “difficult journey to get to this place, where we can finally heave a sigh of relief knowing that Irish football has a secure future”.
Ross said that:
“We can now look forward to a rigorous rebuilding of the FAI from a toxic, autocratic, unfit-for-purpose organisation to a fresh, cleansed association that can honourably represent and support Irish football, at home and also on the world stage.”
The financial assistance is “absolutely conditional” on the reforms being implemented, said Ross.
Among the conditions are that former FAI Board members are not allowed to be appointed to any FAI Board Committees (former Board member John Earley was recently appointed to the FAI’s High-Performance Committee); that the number of independent directors on the 12-person FAI Board be increased from four to six; that all low to middle-income FAI employees are insulated from mandatory redundancy for 18 months; and that the remuneration of the CEO is kept in line with the government’s pay guidelines.
Earlier this month, FAI chairperson Roy Barrett met with Uefa, Sports Minister Shane Ross and Bank of Ireland in order to secure a financing package to keep the Association afloat.
A Uefa delegation also met with Minister Ross and Bank of Ireland’s – the FAI’s main creditor – in recent weeks to discuss the financial crisis at the Association.
With reporting by Gavin Cooney and Aoife Barry
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So landlords attack tenants for not paying rent, when in fact the reason is they moved banks and the tenant in question is a surgeon who had the presence of mind to put the rent aside.
The gardaí were only interested in asking if rent was owed and completely disregarded the attack with, what we can all agree is a deadly weapon. Yeah, that’ll encourage medical professionals to stay in Ireland alright. Of course no arrests and nobody held accountable. Great little country.
Tenner bets the aul fella changed from Ulster Bank or KBC or whatever, forgot to tell his tenants and then decided it was the tenant’s fault when he couldn’t get the rent!
The Gardai are thinly veiled revenue protection for landlords!
It’s well known that attacking someone with a motorised saw is a civil matter….
In cloud cuckoo land.
It’s not a civil matter when someone tries to physically attack you, irrespective of the payment or not. Solicitors give clients many reasons to do or not do things, in the end the decision to act or not is the person involved. Lastly, racial abuse should not be tolerated whether from the landlord or the Gardai!
It’s mad how much Fine Gael and Fine Fail wanted to cry over a photoshopped painting last week and have no comment on this very terrifying situation. I imagine FF/FG spin doctors are working overtime in HQ tonight trying to frame this on Mary Lou somehow.
@Pat Barry: You must have only skimmed the article. The landlord switched bank accounts and didn’t inform the tenant of the new details, so of course when the tenant tried to pay, his payment bounced back and the landlord didn’t answer the phone. Couldn’t be any more cut and dry that the tenant has done nothing wrong.
Impressive show from our law enforcement agency
The rulebooks in this country need to be updated! Non stop drama with properties. Between prices, supply, tax and mortgage rules.. The lot of it stinks, and must be normalised.
Ballinasloe Circular Saw Massacre.
What a scuumbag landlord. What a useless response by the cops.
That sort of thing happens all the time here in Ireland. The Gardai have no interest. The jails would be full if everytime someone was attacked with a chainsaw they arrested the assailant. I’m somewhat surprised to see this story hitting the headlines. There must be an ulterior motive.
With the judges of this country, Garda has no point existing, they would release a mass murderers after a slap on the wrist.
@Yvon Queguiner: They let a guy in wanted buy interpol for 2 seriously offences, no problem!
@Pat Barry: Id i ot
There are some awful thick people in this country.
@Sylvia Power: Yadda, yadda, yadda.
@Pat Barry: go on away back to bed with yourself…
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