No dwarfs
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That should be spelled with a “k” I reckon.
The room looks like the lounge on the B&I ferry. 
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We need a poll
Is TFK still behind John Delaney
- Yes
- No
0 voters
Payments to Delaney’s ex-girlfriend could prove key
FAI records indicate Keegan was paid some €95k between 2012 and 2014
Emmet Malone
JOHN DELANEY: BOOK CLAIMS CARD WAS USED FOR LIMOUSINES, HOTELS AND JEWELLERY
The FAI may have subsidised John Delaney’s lavish lifestyle and efforts to fend off press interest in his activities to the tune of €750,000 but it is the much smaller payments recorded as having been made to his former girlfriend, Susan Keegan, which are likely to be central to any potential prosecution of the association’s former chief executive.
Keegan is recorded by the FAI to have been paid some €95,000 by the association between 2012 and 2014.
The Dubliner, who now lives in Spain, has acknowledged receiving just €10,000 of that and the report, by Newry-based accountancy firm Kosi, found that substantial amounts ostensibly paid to her quickly found their way into Delaney’s personal bank account.
The bulk of the payments were made at the end of 2013 and start of 2014, shortly after the association had secured a substantial write down of its stadium-related debt following the exit from the Irish market of its original lender for the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road, Danske Bank.
An American firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) took over the debt at the end of 2013. The full extent of the discount it obtained on the amount outstanding, which was around €60 million at the time, was never revealed but the FAI received a €12 million reduction, something Delaney claimed might lead to a saving of €20 million in capital and interest.
The latter was high under the terms of the new deal, however, and the deal was only ever seen as a relatively short-term arrangement which would, in turn, be replaced by a loan from a more mainstream lender, something that occurred with the switch to Bank of Ireland in 2016.
Delaney, though, is understood to have sought board approval for a substantial bonus from the association’s board for his part in securing the saving offered by the original KKR.
A former board member says Delaney was deeply disappointed when he was told that there was no scope to pay a bonus given the scale of his existing remuneration.
Huge expenses
Publicly, that was put at €360,000 although it was confirmed last year that the FAI was also paying the rent on his home and huge expenses. Kosi found that even after some of this money had been repaid, the association had provided Delaney with “excess benefit” to the value of €725,000.
In their book, Champagne Football, to be published this week, the Sunday Times journalists, Mark Tighe and Paul Rowan, who broke a series of stories in this area, put the amount withdrawn in cash from ATMs by Delaney at €50,000 and suggest that his FAI credit card was used to pay for jewellery, limousines and hotels. More than €500,000 is also reported to have spent on his personal legal costs, much of it in relation to libel actions.
These arrangements had serious consequences for the association, contributing to its need to make a settlement with Revenue for €2.7 million in 2019.
It is understood the detail of the payments to Keegan were really only examined around that time when then president Donal Conway and then director of finance, Alex O’Connell, sought to untangle some of the specific financial issues around Delaney’s dealings with his former employer in the wake of initial revelations.
Facilitate
The pair are believed to have found that a cheque made out to Keegan for €25,000 was lodged to Delaney’s account and that an invoice, purportedly from Keegan for €35,000 was effectively generated within the association’s own system. The Sunday Times have reported that it was created by a Microsoft Office account registered to JDelaney@fai.ie.
Some of the money is said to have been justified on the basis of a claim that Keegan had acted as a match agent, helping to facilitate the arrangement of two high-profile friendly games against England. Keegan has never claimed that she performed that role and has denied getting the money.
Then FAI director of finance Tony Dignam says that they were approved by Delaney and “a number of senior members of the board”. Dignam suggested Michael Cody was a key figure when it came to the consideration of sensitive financial matters.
“I highlighted my concerns to John Delaney, Eddie Murray and Michael Cody, which was the process for me if I had issues or concerns. I also brought my concerns to many of the other board members but nobody wanted to know. They [those in effective control] did what they saw fit and in the end I felt there was nothing I could do to change that.”
The payments ostensibly made to Keegan may still prove critical to whether the investigation initiated by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement ends in a criminal prosecution.
A large amount of material, comprising 13 hard copy documents and a digital device containing 270,000 separate files including Delaney’s emails, was seized from the FAI’s offices at Abbotstown under a search warrant in February.
The former CEO was to given until July to establish which of those documents he believed to be personal or covered by legal privilege but then sought additional time and he was instructed to provide the ODCE with a list by this month so that the High Court can make a determination in the matter.
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Dear me 
That jdelaney@fai.ie could have been anyone.
I’d say Johnny boy is on the phone to Munster rugby as we speak.
Given he’s got 1 call I’d be dialling Johnnie Cochrane ahead of all others.
Ah you’d love to see a white collar criminal held to account, but let’s face it, with the IFSC pira foursquare behind him, it’s unlikely to happen.
He’s a great patriot cos he said hello to wan of them in the lobby of the Westbury.
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Bhoys, does anyone have a contact in the ODCE who’d be up for some file shredding ala the Seanie Fitz case? Happy to take chat to PM.
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We don’t appear to be dealing with a master criminal here.
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Were you at the 50th mate?
The next qualifier draw for ROI post Dela will be interesting .
Unfortunately, he didn’t really need to be.
Everything seems above board to me.
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He probably billed the FAi for the hotel notepaper he drew up the ‘contract’ on.
I think John’s only crime, if it’s even that, was caring too much and taking it too personally. After his negotiation skills and political manoeuvring resulted in massive debt write downs, once off FIFA contributions (post Henry handball) and UEFA redistribution of TV rights to favour smaller associations like the FAI, his genuine mistake was in failing to properly document the various BIKs he’d deservedly earned on the back of it. He probably needs to take some of the blame, given he was CEO, but it was a structural issue really. I hope John isn’t lost to football for too long.
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He won’t be. They’ll probably let him manage the Mountjoy soccer team.
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I wasn’t no.
When exactly was it? Was it around the time of the Denmark play off in 2017?
I’ll never forget being in an awful panic for a ticket for that home leg and sort of as a last resort around 2pm that day making a phone call to a mutual friend of myself and Dela (cc @Fat_Pox you know who I’m talking about).
Within a few minutes my friend text back and said there would be a ticket waiting for me in The Ballsbridge Hotel at 6pm.
It was the little things like that, that made Dela great.
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