How much trouble is the FAI now in?

Sport
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They are fucked

Ticket fiasco leaves soccer association millions in red

By Daniel McDonnell

Thursday September 09 2010

IRISH soccer’s governing body is facing a crisis over the disastrous sale of premium tickets for the new Aviva Stadium, an Irish Independent investigation reveals.

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) is millions of euro in the red after it failed to sell half of the 10-year tickets it planned to use to cover its massive borrowings. Thousands of empty premium seats were clearly visible in both of Ireland’s first two home internationals in the €411m stadium.

And today’s revelations will heap further pressure on chief executive John Delaney, who has continually denied the extent of the ticketing fiasco.

Mr Delaney and his board gave the green light for the association to take out massive loans to fund its €74m commitment towards the renovation of Lansdowne Road. It intended to cover the repayment from the sale of 10,400 premium-level ‘Vantage Club’ seats.

At the launch of the Vantage project in September 2008, Mr Delaney said the association needed to sell 60pc of the seats to reach break-even point.

However, figures seen by the Irish Independent reveal that International Stadia Group (ISG), a third-party company commissioned by the FAI to sell the seats over two years, had allocated just 4,077 seats when they wound down their association at the end of last month.

And the actual number and value of the premium ticket sales is far lower, our investigation reveals.

Some 939 of the 4,077 Vantage seats have been allocated to existing 10-year ticket holders, many of whom are from financial institutions who haven’t paid a cent since the Vantage Club project was launched in 2008. They will not decide whether or not to renew their tickets until 2014 or 2016.

Orders

The figure of 4,077 seats also contains scores of cancelled orders that remain in the system. These include people who were sent out direct-debit forms more than a year ago and have chosen not to return them and clients and fans who informed the ticket sales team they would not be making further payments.

The extent of the poor ticket sales has raised serious questions over decisions taken by the Abbotstown hierarchy.

At the beginning of the project, ISG were prepared to pay the FAI €75m for all of the premium seats and bear the risk if sales were poor. The FAI believed it could earn more by remaining the backbone of the operation and paying ISG commission.

Last night, an FAI spokesman denied it turned down an offer for all of the seats. But in May, then FAI president David Blood stated the board had made the decision to press ahead with their own business plan, rather than accept an offer from a third party. Now the association, which has taken control of the sales from ISG, must manage the huge debt.

Ireland played their first competitive match at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday, with thousands of empty seats in the venue for the Euro 2012 qualifier with Andorra. Last month, they failed to sell out a glamour friendly with Argentina.

ISG struggled to sell the tickets because of the exorbitant prices, which ranged from €12,000 to €32,000 depending on the quality of view, to cover all soccer international games over the next decade.

The IRFU, who were partners with the FAI and the Government in funding the Lansdowne revamp, had sold all their premium seats at a flat price of €15,000 before the Rugby World Cup in 2007.

Many of those who bought the FAI’s tickets have also secured them at significantly discounted prices, with a common reduction of 33pc for the cheapest seats.

At the FAI’s recent AGM in Wexford, Mr Delaney, who is paid €430,000 a year by the association and was recently awarded a new contract, insisted 6,300 of the premium seats had been allocated, including ‘sponsorship commitments’.

Yet he failed to reveal how many had actually been sold, either at discount or full price.

The Irish Independent sent a list of questions to the FAI yesterday with respect to the sale of Vantage Club seats.

In response to our queries, FAI communications director Peter Sherrard would only reply: “All of these questions were asked at the AGM and were answered by John Delaney in your presence. We do not have anything to add.”

The Irish Independent understands the FAI has agreed a deal with 3 Mobile, the new shirt sponsors, which will see the telecommunications company taking up to 2,000 of the premium-level seats.

But it is not clear if the FAI will receive any extra profit from that arrangement. Mr Delaney has said the FAI’s four-year deal with the mobile company is worth €7.5m to the association. A 3 spokesman would only confirm that “ticketing and supporter initiatives” were part of the sponsorship.

  • Daniel McDonnell

Irish Independent

22

5 million profit
38 million debt

hardly fucked runt

23

Do you think we could barter them down on an aul 10 year seat, or maybe a TFK corportate Box even? I’d say toss him a few hoodies and we’ll be set, permanent veune for the jamborees.

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They are due another €21m payment on the Avviva debt at sometime this year and will most likely have to borrow again to cover that. The €5m profit in 09 was considered an exceptional year and well out of line with previous returns. They will also be playing at a reduced capacity stadium going forward which means they won’t be able to draw as much dosh from the higher profile games.

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At the beginning of the project, ISG were prepared to pay the FAI €75m for all of the premium seats and bear the risk if sales were poor. The FAI believed it could earn more by remaining the backbone of the operation and paying ISG commission.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

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FFS- they had to pay an outrageous rent for the pigsty which they wont anymore so the reduced capacity means nothing

27

The GAA gave them a very good deal for the use of Croke Park.
It was win/win for everyone. Unfortunately for the FAI they now have to revert to a much smaller stadium that they can’t afford to pay for.

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??

38 million in debt

5 million profit a year

they will have it paid off in no time & will be asset rich

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Falling attendances, apathy amongst supporters, mediocre team, Dublin GAA on the rise, all these factors point to the death knell of the FAI.

The IRFU will be the only ones who will be asset rich.

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They were offered that €75 million in May this year too so they should have snapped it up knowing the times we were in and the trouble that they already had at that stage trying to sell their premium tickets. Gobshites :lol:

Also, the FAI Finance director resigned last friday as he’s fooked up big time. Gobshites :lol:

31

You can imagine the gombeens sitting around happy out with themselves:

“If these IGS boys are offering us 75m then that must mean the tickets are worth a lot more than that, we’ll show them we are no fools, no deal”

32

They should have stayed renting but I tell ye lads it would never happen the GAA nor the IFA

I fell sorry for the real soccer people in the country

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I walked by tolka park on sunday and I honestly couldn’t believe it was a functioning stadium. What a dump. It makes cusack park look modern. That’s pretty bad.

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I think this is good for the game here. If the, partitionist, breakway FAI folds, the true governing body of association football on this island, the IFA, will step in and we’ll finally have a re-united Ireland team. Shelbourne and Bohs will finally get a chance to add to their tally of Irish Cups.

HEEEEALY!

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Well siS
I was talking about the Irish Farmers Association it would never have happened in farming circles but in all fairness you point is valid.

Myself and Yourself could always organise a bucket collect outside the grounds when the league starts again and a few of the religious lads here could have a church gate collection for em too.

The poor hoors

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The Indo ain’t letting this one rest, although it really does question the professionalism of ISG, who seem to have pretty much just opened up their former clients file to the newspaper:


FAI fills the best seats at 25pc of ‘new’ price
No guarantee Lansdowne fans will renew at premium cost

by Daniel McDonnell

Friday September 10 2010

MOST of the Football Association of Ireland’s top-priced Aviva Stadium seats are occupied by fans and clients who paid less than a quarter of their current value, an Irish Independent investigation has revealed.

Tickets for these premium seats cost €3,200 a year. However, the majority have been allocated to customers who paid up to €750 a year for seats in the old Lansdowne Road stadium.

And the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has no official guarantee that these customers will renew their tickets at more than four times the cost when their current deals run out.

This questions the FAI’s assertion that they are satisfied with the pricing structure for premium seats.

FAI chief executive John Delaney has again refused to answer key questions about the controversial ‘Vantage Club’ scheme to sell premium stadium tickets. In a statement yesterday, the FAI failed to provide the actual level of sales figures since the project began in September 2008.

Instead, it maintained the position outlined by Mr Delaney at the association’s recent AGM, where he insisted that sales “including sponsorship commitments” had surpassed 6,300.

Mr Delaney has refused to provide a distinction between “commitments” and actual sales. He has also neglected to outline how many of the packages have been sold at full price.

Documents seen by this newspaper reveal that holders of 939 10-year tickets carried over from the old stadium were given the choice to sit wherever they wanted at premium level in the new €411m stadium.

These fans and clients, including two of the country’s bailed-out banks, had bought their tickets for up to €7,500 in either 2004 or 2006. The holders of 753 of these opted for the best seats in the venue, which are priced at €32,000 over 10 years for new customers.

These customers do not have to decide whether to renew their tickets until 2014 or 2016.

Mr Delaney has defended the prices for the ‘Vantage Club’ package on the basis that most of the high-end seats are filled.

But while more ‘Vantage 1’ seats are allocated than the other three categories available, almost 90pc of these have gone to customers who did not buy the tickets at that price.

The customers have also given no official guarantee that they intend to renew the seats when their current deals expire.

If the existing 10-year ticket holders do take up the full value of the seats they currently occupy, it will be worth more than €14m to the association between 2014 and 2020, according to the FAI’s projections.

However, it has no certainty that these customers will opt to buy tickets that are four times the cost of what they originally paid in a pre-recession market.

Yesterday, the Irish Independent revealed that when ISG, the firm signed up to sell the premium tickets, wound down its arrangement last month, the FAI had failed to sell even a third of the 10,400 seats.

Just 4,077 seats had been allocated. This includes the 939 existing tickets, in addition to cancelled tickets that remained in the system and direct debits where customers chose not to send back the form so that the payments could be activated.

At the start of the project, Mr Delaney said the sale of just over 6,000 tickets represented the break-even point.

Last month, he acknowledged that the 939 tickets attributed to existing members were included in the FAI’s sales figures. He said he was confident that these clients would “probably” renew when their current arrangement comes to an end.

The premium-level tickets for the Aviva Stadium were divided into four categories. ‘Vantage 1’ seats were priced at €3,200 a year, ‘Vantage 2’ cost €1,900, ‘Vantage 3’ cost €1,450 and ‘Vantage 4’ €1,200.

Break-even

Letters were sent to the existing 10-year holders asking in which area they would prefer to sit, at no extra cost, unless they wanted to purchase extra seats.

Some 753 chose ‘Vantage 1’, 165 opted for ‘Vantage 2’, five chose ‘Vantage 3’, and 16 took the ‘Vantage 4’ berths.

It is understood that when ISG was coming towards the end of its association last month, 849 ‘Vantage 1s’ had been allocated – meaning that the FAI had only sold 96 of the top-priced tickets since September 2008 – and some of these were sold at a discount.

Sales of premium-level seats are crucial as the FAI seeks to repay the substantial loan it needed to build the Aviva Stadium. Its net bank debt at the end of 2009 was €38m. The FAI has since paid a further €21.9m towards the project.

  • Daniel McDonnell

Irish Independent

37

The small problem you Soccerball people have is that the FAI arent 38 million in debt,that figure was based on the projections of Vantage Club ticket sales that werent actually happening at all,officially 4060 or so Premium seats are supposedly sold out of 10700 or so,the real figure is about 3000 seats sold as many cancelled subscriptions are still being counted in,of that 3000 many were sold for 30-40% less than the asking price.

The long and short of it is that the FAIs real debt stands at about €75 million,up to now theyve been doing an impressive job on hiding this fact but the cat is well out of the bag now,Irish soccerball is fucked unless they win in the Euromillions or something.

What a shower of fucking goms.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHZ2CmTwdA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3hYYBJw5RA

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You have to hand it to the IRFU, they’re a cute shower of cunts.

Numbers don’t add up

The FAI are struggling to pay off their share of the Aviva Stadium as the Vantage Club scheme fails to entice the average football supporter
Ciaran Cronin

It is, perhaps, the greatest absurdity of them all. The guts and dregs of the FAI’s finances have been paraded for public consumption these past few days but one core fact has been overlooked. The estimated €60 million debt that will weigh the association down for the next 10 years, and far beyond if the experience of other sporting bodies are examined, is all for a stadium that the FAI will have no rights to whatsoever in 60 years time. The association’s chief executive, John Delaney, has frequently compared the FAI’s current debt to that of any homeowner with a mortgage but there surely can’t be many Irish people out there who would be willing to stretch themselves financially for decades, only to find themselves with not so much as a brick to their name once all their commitments have been paid off.

The Sunday Tribune can reveal that when plans for the new Lansdowne Road were drawn up, it was agreed that the stadium would have a life span of 60 years, a common enough figure for a newly-built stadium. But what was unusual about the agreement was that on completion of that term, the IRFU would assume, or rather re-assume, ownership of the land, or at any point before that if the stadium was deemed unfit for purpose. Even if, and this might cause considerable embarrassment for the FAI in future years, it is decided that the stadium can safely be used for, say, a further 10 years after the 60–year lease has expired, the IRFU will become sole owners and the FAI will revert back to being tenants.

The more you look at all this from an IRFU point of view, the more it appears they have executed a financial masterstroke. Not underhanded by any stretch of the imagination, but undeniably cute. The total joint commitment from the IRFU and FAI for the new stadium, after Government funding, was €151 million. Had the IRFU decided to go it alone with the new Lansdowne Road, they would have been obliged to pay those construction costs all on their own, a move which would have stretched their finances to absolute breaking point. By a conservative estimate, the IRFU would have had to borrow perhaps 40 per cent of that total, something that would have put the successful running of the national team and the four provinces in serious jeopardy. So instead the IRFU boxed clever, flattered Delaney and the FAI into offering them co-ownership rather than tenancy and roped them into paying half the stadium’s construction cost. But co-ownership will cost them nothing, absolutely nothing. Construction costs have been shared, running costs will be shared and after 60 years, the FAI won’t have a seat to their name, while the IRFU will be in a position to consider building a new stadium on the land they own, backed by the money they will have banked from four batches of 10-year ticket sales, most of which will be pure profit.

Admittedly, there was some sense in Delaney’s initial thinking on all this. If the FAI had been able to fund their commitment to the stadium through the Vantage Club scheme, and by extension not had to borrow from the banks, becoming co-owners for 60 years would have had some logic to it. With the money from the first batch of 10-year tickets paying for the FAI’s initial stadium commitments, they would then have had four further rounds of 10-year tickets sales to boost their coffers. In a best case scenario, the FAI might have emerged from their 50-year co-ownership deal with €400 million in the bank, a sum that would have gone some way to perhaps building their own stadium in 2070. As it is, the entire issue of what kind of money they might have in the bank at that point is anybody’s guess.

Vantage Club is where the FAI’s financial world has fallen down around them. The scheme appeared botched from its very inception and not one clear and constructive way of fixing the mess has been offered ever since. We’ve had the jerseys for club scheme, the cash up-front discount, the discount on a second ticket if you’ve already bought another, but all any of these initiatives have done is screamed to the country that the FAI are in deep financial trouble. And if somebody in financial trouble is trying to sell you a good or service, the natural instinct of any consumer is to wait until the price hits rock bottom before buying.

A bit of honesty on the FAI’s part might have helped matters because in all honesty, their backtracking and feeble excuse-making – particularly these past few days – stinks. They, and Delaney in particular, should hold their hands up. They should admit they messed up, that the price they were looking for 10-year tickets was too much. They should come clean on the figures and disclose that they sold only about a third of what they wanted to. They should tell the country, a country well used to hearing it at this stage, that they’re in a spot of bother but that they’re going to do their very best to get out of it. They should issue a rallying call to the Irish football public to not only go to the Aviva for an international to get behind their team, but also to help plug the gap in the association’s finances so that resources like regional development officers can be maintained. But instead they pick silly fights with the media, argue over the minutiae of a few numbers here and there, bury their head and ignore the bigger ones, like the suffocating debt building around them.

The start of any rethink needs to include a serious look at the issue of selling tickets, something that should be one of the association’s prime commercial functions. If you were a punter thinking about watching Giovanni Trapattoni’s side at home in the near future, there is an array of options to choose from. If you opened your match programme from the Andorra game on Tuesday night, there was a leaflet extolling the virtues of a season ticket, costing €270 for seven games between now and June 2011. The programme also contained an advert for premium level corporate hospitality packages organised by the Marcus Evans group, Roy Keane’s benefactor at Ipswich. During the match, the electronic pitch side hoarding also told of a €90 package for tickets for both the Russia and Norway games. There’s all this and the Vantage Club scheme to decide between. It’s some choice.

In reality, though, the thinking has become so muddled it’s actually putting people off going to matches. And that’s before we even get to price. Across the water, the Welsh FA put together a ticket package for their four home Euro 2012 qualifiers over the next 14 months, which includes an encounter against England in Cardiff. The total cost of a seat for all four matches is £90. The FAI would probably expect you to pay £90 for the England ticket alone.

It’s time to have a big think about things, chaps. Because right now, the numbers ain’t adding up.

ccronin@tribune.ie

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There was a good article in the main section of the Sunday times as well. Apparently the fai invited up to 25 schoolboy clubs to the andorra game and gave them all tickets in the premium vantage club sections to try and make them look full for the cameras. I can’t imagine the poor fool who paid 32k for his ticket would be too impressed at having a horde of kids landed in beside him.