The FAI’s new executive lead Paul Cooke said he was “shocked” by what new accounts revealed about the abject state of the association’s finances.

Cooke said the figures, which revealed net current liabilities of €55m and bank debts of €29m, were worse than he would have thought before he joined the FAI’s board as vice president earlier this year.

And the FAI also revealed that the cost of their settlement with former CEO John Delaney was €462,000.

Cooke was commenting after reconstituted accounts for 2016 and 2017 revealed profits were substantially overstated in both years.

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The accounts also did not reflect pension and loyalty bonus agreements with former chief executive John Delaney, which would have seen the association liable for €3m in 2021.

Outgoing FAI president Donal Conway, who is to step down next month, said he had been unaware of the agreements with Mr Delaney.

He told a news conference: "The board I was a member of, as a collective, did not do its job well enough.

"I was part of a board that should have scrutinised more seriously than it did.

"I feel responsible for not having discharged that responsibility to a higher standard."

In submitting the accounts, auditors Deloitte said they had not obtained all the information and explanations they considered necessary for the purpose of its audit of the FAI’s finances.

Deloitte said it was unable to confirm a directors report accompanying the accounts had been prepared in accordance with the Companies Act, and was unable to determine whether adequate accounting records had been kept.

They also said they were unable to report whether all directors' remuneration and transactions specified by law had been made.

Discussing the accounts, Cooke said the FAI originally recorded a profit of €2.344m in 2016, but as a result of "adjustments", the actual surplus was just €66,000 for the year – a swing of over €2.2m.

The FAI originally declared a profit of €2.8m for 2017, but after "adjustments" of €5.6m, there was actually a loss of €2.9m.

"The 2018 figures don’t get much better with a loss of €9m," he said.

Cooke said there were contracts with John Delaney worth €2.14m which were now reflected in the revised 2018 accounts and also the unwinding of a sponsorship contract, which amounted to €1.7m.

He said €3.6m had been spent on professional fees arising from various investigations the association is mired in since earlier this year.

Cooke said there had also been a €2.7m declaration to the Revenue Commissioners.

Payments to directors of €430,000 were initially recorded for 2016, but the restated accounts now place this figure at €1.16m.

Similarly directors emoluments were recorded as €430,000 for 2017, but were actually just under €1m. The sum for 2018 was also over €1m.

"One of the reasons why the directors' remuneration figures is so high is in there, in addition to the pension payments, the loyalty bonus and basic salary, there are other payments that would have been made on behalf of the former CEO and items which should have been declared as benefit in kind,” said Cooke.

Cooke said a settlement was made with Delaney in September amounting to €462,000. This was made up of a payment in lieu of notice of €90,000 and a contribution to his pension fund of €372,000.

The FAI executive lead said the settlement arose out of two contracts given to him in 2014, one for €2m and one for €1m.

Cooke said one was a pension-type payment kicking in from 2021 and the other was a loyalty bonus "which kicked in immediately".

"This exposed us at the end of 2021 to a potential liability of €3m. This had not been reflected in the previous years accounts," he said.

Cooke said the auditors had included a disclaimer of opinion in relation to the FAI proceeding as a going concern.

Explaining this, he said the standard required by the auditors was that they needed actual evidence the FAI had refinancing in place.

"We are at very advanced stage of refinancing the business. We are very close, but we don’t have sufficient evidence yet for the auditors, hence they disclaimed opinion on that," he said.

Another point raised by the auditors was around "unrecorded liabilities".

"As you can appreciate there are a number of investigations ongoing which could throw up additional liabilities, hence their disclaimers of opinion," he said.

Cooke said the association had been preparing "a robust business plan" with Grant Thornton, which was being scrutined by the banks and had also been sent to UEFA. He said he expected it to be approved shortly.

He said the FAI’s debt on the Aviva Stadium, which John Delaney previously said would be cleared by 2020, would now be put on a 15-year mortgage.

"How people worked through this, I do not know," said Cooke.

He said the association needed to regain the trust of Sport Ireland and Sports Minister Shane Ross.

"Hopefully today is the start of that," he said.

Questioned by reporters, Donal Conway said he was "disappointed with the figures".

"I wasn’t aware the financial situation was as stark as it is presented today," he said.

"I started to become aware of it earlier this year and started to have a more forensic look at our finances than we might have done previously as directors."

He admitted the financial model previously operated by the FAI was not fit for purpose.

"Some of this on my part is being wise after the event," he said.

"I took a lot of things on trust, the information I was being given."

Conway said he was not aware of the bonus and pension arrangements made with Delaney.

Asked how these were approved by the board, he said some board directors were authorised to deal with the chief executive.

"Across the board, the board was not aware of the arrangements in 2014."

Conway said he would have welcomed the publication of the Kosi report, commissioned by Sport Ireland. Instead the report was last week referred to An Garda Síochána and will not currently be published.

"It was not our report. So ultimately what happened with it had nothing to do with the FAI," he said.

Asked if his stepping down would help the FAI shake its reputation as "a toxic brand", Conway said he didn’t think there was any doubt that any sponsor associated with the FAI had not been impacted by what has happened through 2019.

"I think there is a past and a future here. I think today is a significant line. All of these financials are laid bare today," he said.

"I think prospective sponsors who want to be associated with brand FAI will be watching and seeing what is happening."

Conway said he believed the arrival of four independent directors in the new year would give "huge confidence" to anybody who would want to be associated with the FAI.

He said football was the most significant sport in the world and our national teams were "a huge valuable property".

"I would see us being able to push forward from here," he said.

Asked whether people working for the FAI would lose their jobs as a result of the financial situation, the FAI’s executive lead Paul Cooke said there would be consequences, but that the association was not going to say anything about that today.

Questioned about staff morale, Cooke said: "The way I would look at it is how would I feel about what has gone on in the last eight or nine months."

Speaking about the 15-year mortgage relating to the FAI’s Aviva stadium debt, Cooke said it was a normal business decision and he did not see the sense in paying off the debt quickly when the FAI would have it as an asset for 30 or 40 years.

He also dismissed speculation that the FAI could sell its stake in the stadium to deal with its debt crisis. "It is not in the refinancing package," he said.

Cooke said the plan to put the FAI on a better footing was "not a one-year fix". He said the aim was for the association to be breaking even by 2022 or 2023.

Meanwhile, Senator Padraic O Ceide, a member of the Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport, has called for an emergency meeting of the committee be held "without delay" to discuss the latest crisis in the FAI. He has suggested that the FAI, Sport Ireland and Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross be called on to attend.

Online Editors