Oireachtas grilling underscores FAI's flaws

THE Houses of the Oireachtas resembled a House of Horrors for some FAI officials last Wednesday but not all were scorched like overcooked Christmas turkeys.

This was always a salvage mission once the delegation were summoned by the Committee on Tourism, Sport and Media to face questioning on their €863m facilities plan and, more topically, governance turmoil.

A full 11-a-side team from the association arrived at Kildare Street but it was Chairman Roy Barrett, on his final public function in the role, and chief executive Jonathan Hill, who were cast as central characters.

Over three-and-a-half hours, an anticipated dollop of political grandstanding featured.

While a couple crumbled in the settings, others flourished and there’s the more serious business of the Public Accounts Committee sitting to come for the FAI on the same turf on February 1. The second half promises to be spicier.

Mid-afternoon Oireachtas TV wasn’t as popular as the infamous John Delaney visit of 2019 or any of the recent RTÉ sessions arising from the Ryan Tubridy furore but several bases were covered. Sufficient ambiguity was left for this controversy to rumble on.

Here we assess the performances of those in the thick of it, from both sides of the divide, attaching suitable grades for their end-of-year assignment.

DISTINCTIONS

MERITS

PASS

FAILURES

*****

Duff gets ball rolling on raising eyebrows over LOI

Damien Duff stirring it up for rival managers this week reinforced the view that the League of Ireland never sleeps.

Fixtures released last Friday won’t start until February 16 but already the Shelbourne manager is hopping the ball by affirming his team’s European qualification trumps the silverware feats of Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick’s