YOU can hear the metaphors abounding already.
Fate will decide if the FAI delegation encounter green or red lights at the Kildare Street pedestrian crossing on their way into Leinster House next Tuesday week to face a grilling.
How the association copes with the barrage of questioning over the afternoon session will be intriguing but the symbolism of being before public representatives primarily on matters relating to governance is as pronounced as the jibes already circulating about turkeys and Christmas.
This was supposed to be a different FAI to the version that crumbled in the same setting in 2019.
Back then, John Delaney’s refusal to answer questions on grounds of legal advice was matched in enormity by the obliviousness of Treasurer Eddie Murray to 23 other bank accounts they held apart from the single one he was aware of.
The figures that prompted this summoning are not of that scale but the potential damage is.
Back then, Delaney wasn’t shy about boasting in the Oireachtas how it was the Uefa mothership he was an executive member of, not the State, which was the largest donor to the FAI, but his legacy of carnage means they’ve never been more reliant on the taxpayer to survive, never mind thrive. As was the case four years ago, government grants are stalled. That amounts to €7.3m when the €500,000 supplementary sum bestowed upon women’s football on the back of World Cup qualification is factored in.
Then there’s the €600m-odd they’re seeking from state coffers over a 15-year period to modernise stadia and training grounds, including their own, to merely bring Irish football to a standard similar-sized nations have enjoyed for an age.
That crusade for the financial support was slated to kick off next year but,
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