'Leaks have stopped' - Niall Quinn believes FAI governance has improved

Niall Quinn believes the overpayment of FAI CEO Jonathan Hill's being spotted is a sign that governance has improved at the association. 

It emerged last year that Hill had been paid €11,500 in lieu of untaken holidays, meaning his salary exceeded the amount permitted under the terms of the FAI's state bailout. 

"In the last couple of years, that [governance] side of things has started to settle down," former Ireland international Quinn, who served as the FAI's interim deputy CEO during the Covid-19 pandemic, told the Ray D'Arcy Show.

"Someone will immediately point to 'Hey, but the current CEO's salary [overpayment] of €12,000, isn't that terrible'.

"Did anybody ever think of saying, 'That's the new governance'. It was caught after €12,000, not €67 million. That's the only way of looking at it when you've been in there trying to make change.

"That in itself shows you that the association is doing the right thing. The leaks have stopped. There were leaks all the way through that process of trying to get into a good place, people putting stuff in the media that they wanted from their side. That seems to have stopped."

Quinn, who is serving as the chairperson of the Dillon Quirke Foundation, said it's a "good thing" nobody on the outside of the FAI knows who will be the next senior Ireland men's manager. 

"This has been quite unusual that there has been no leaks," added Quinn.

"A good boardroom doesn't leak. Whoever gets this job, I'll be very supportive anyway. Anthony (Barry) is the latest name, it was Roy Keane a week or two ago, Gus Poyet.

"I don't think that the association has to answer to all that noise that's going on. I do think they've got somebody in mind that they wanted in who is contracted elsewhere. 

"Anthon