John Delaney has stepped aside as chief executive to take another role at the FAI

John Delaney had loaned almost €250,000 to a property company partly owned by him while the FAI was paying his rent and when he provided a €100,000 loan to the football governing body.

JMPHE, a building and property rental company in which Mr Delaney owns a 25pc share and acts as a director, owed him €222,485 for the year ending February 2018.

The figure, according to documents filed with the Companies Registration Office (CRO), was down slightly from an outstanding amount of €227,111 for the previous period.

The accounts showed in 2016 and 2017 there was no remuneration paid to directors of the company, which is based in Butlerstown, Co Waterford.

It had net liabilities of €371,284 according to its latest annual accounts, which were filled in November.

JMPHE was set up in 2003 and its main activity is to "purchase, lease, exchange, hire or otherwise acquire lands".

Among its owners is former Fine Gael councillor for Waterford Hilary Quinlan, who stepped down from the board of Irish Water in 2014 after it emerged he was the ministerial driver of then Department of the Environment minister for state Paudie Coffey.

There was no response to a request for comment from the Irish Independent on Mr Delaney's loans to the company, from him or the FAI. It emerged over the weekend that the FAI was paying €3,000 a month for its former CEO's rent for a house in Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow. He was earning a salary of €360,000 a year.

He provided the FAI with a €100,000 bridging loan in 2017 to help the association through a cash-flow problem.

Over the weekend, the FAI announced Mr Delaney was stepping aside as CEO, but was taking on a new role as "executive vice-president".

The role, which comes with a reported salary of €120,000, will involve Mr Delaney retaining responsibilities in areas including Fifa and Uefa matters.

An FAI statement said that the changes were a consequence of a governance review commissioned in February. It was undertaken by sports governance expert Jonathan Hall Associates, and its principal Jonathan Hall, a former director of governance and director of football services with the English FA.

However, there have been calls for a complete audit of the FAI's accounts, with Fine Gael TD Noel Rock calling it "both urgent and necessary" to restore faith in the organisation.

This week, he described the decision to move Mr Delaney from CEO to the newly created position of executive vice-president as a "farce reshuffle" that has been given "unanimous approval" by other board members.

"This is shoddy, slapdash decision-making and bad corporate governance: this board has been in place for too long and is too beholden to the former CEO.

"Withholding of State funding may well be necessary, and we should reserve this position.

"In the meantime, a complete audit of the accounts is both urgent and necessary," he said.

The FAI has said that Mr Delaney will still appear before an Oireachtas committee to answer questions next month.

Irish Independent