Truly a giant among pygmies
Delaney going cap in hand to UEFA to bail out the FAI so they can afford the repayments on the Aviva. A total shambles of an organisation.
http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/irish/2013/0609/455575-uefa-help-fai-with-stadium-payments/
Ain’t too proud to beg
UEFA have stepped in to help the Football Association of Ireland meet its debt repayments for the Aviva Stadium.
The organisation has confirmed that is has advanced a “solidarity payment”, understood to amount to several million Euros from its development fund, to the FAI.
Finance director Josef Koller told the Sunday Times: “It is a really difficult situation, because of the economic crisis, and we said ‘Okay, we can advance certain solidarity payments’.”
The agreement was reached after a meeting between Koller and Danske Bank, the FAI’s main creditor, at which chief executive John Delaney was present.
Koller said: "I just said to John Delaney that if you want me to be there and I can assist by explaining it from UEFA’s point of view, I will do it.
“Danske felt very comfortable to have somebody from UEFA there, especially the finance director. It was really worthwhile to explain to Danske how important this is for us.”
The FAI declined to comment on the report today.
Just shows you the high level of respect the bigwigs in Uefa have for John Delaney:clap:
Wouldn’t be one bit surprised if John is in the running to replace Platini when his term as president is over
[quote=“Sandymount Red, post: 784407, member: 1074”]Delaney going cap in hand to UEFA to bail out the FAI so they can afford the repayments on the Aviva. A total shambles of an organisation.
http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/irish/2013/0609/455575-uefa-help-fai-with-stadium-payments/[/quote]
Why isn’t that seen as a positive story? The FAI have secured funding from Europe.
[FONT=Calibri]Shame more people in Ireland don’t pursue every possible avenue to ensure their debts get repaid, like Mr Delaney has done in this instance. [/FONT]
Good to see UEFA contributing to making Rugbys future even more secure in this country.
On another note. Danske looking to get out of Ireland fast should mean opportunity for JD to sort out a good chunk of debt forgiveness I would have thought
Great anecdote by Damien Duff about how he was awarded a commemorative Golden Cap for his 100 appearances by the great man a few weeks back
John really is an alright sort:clap:
[SIZE=16px]Despite the upbeat assessment of the association’s financial situation in the directors’ report that accompanies them, the latest accounts for the FAI appear to suggest that the organisation’s revenues are under enormous pressure with the scale of the drop in last year’s turnover masked by exceptional payments relating to Euro 2012 from Uefa, which barely get a mention.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=16px]The accounts, which were sent to clubs and affiliates around the country this week ahead of the association’s agm in Wicklow, reveal that turnover for 2012 fell to €39.66 million from €45.13 million for the previous 12 months.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=16px]In the directors’ report that accompanies the document it is stated that “the decrease of revenue was driven by a lower number of home matches, we had only one competitive home match in 2012”.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=16px]This is certainly bound to have been a major factor with the senior national team having only played four games at the Aviva stadium during the calendar year, three of which were friendlies. The fact that the one competitive game was against Germany, however, should have ensured that that was comfortably the most lucrative game of Ireland’s two-year qualifying cycle with a higher than normal attendance and very substantial television rights revenue – whatever the timing of the payments relating to the latter.
Send off game
Another, meanwhile, was a pre-tournament send off game, in this instance against Bosnia Herzegovina, which would normally be expected to be a big, and fairly financially rewarding, occasion. The collapse in ticket sales for international games and the resulting drop in revenues is clearly a problem, however, although the flip side is that it means having less home games is not actually as significant as it might have been in better times when games routinely sold out and at higher prices.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=16px]A more interesting, or perhaps alarming, aspect of the accounts is that Euro 2012 barely gets a mention of any description with only a passing reference to the fact that Ireland qualified for a major championship for the first time in decade made in a paragraph relating to the association’s continued investment in youth development.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=16px]Sponsorship revenue, it is noted, was grown from €7.2 million in 2011 to €8.1 million last year “despite a very difficult economic environment” but no information is provided with regard to how much, if any, or all, of this relates to bonuses payable on the basis of qualification for Euro2012. It would be normal to expect that such clauses are built into the FAI’s commercial contracts and its chief executive, John Delaney, has certainly suggested in the past that its biggest deals do contain them.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=16px]Most starkly of all, however, there is no mention whatsoever of the €8 million that the association was due from Uefa as a result of its participation at Euro2012. The FAI cut back significantly on the amount of information contained in its published accounts several years ago and now reveals very little more to delegates than it is legally required to but as with sponsorship revenues, the larger Sports Council and other government grants do get a mention.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=16px]Uefa’s accounts for 2011/’12 strongly suggest, however, that this money has been paid along with a “one-off payment of €3 million for investment, social and grassroots projects”.
Every four years
The €3 million forms part of the HatTrick programme which provides a significant stream of income annually to associations with these larger payments made once every four years on the basis that Uefa’s turnover effectively doubles in the year of a European championship with last year’s tournament responsible for €1.39 billion of the organisation’s €2.8 billion revenue.[/SIZE]
Assets> Liabilities
All good
John Delaney is bad for Irish football.
for “northern” Irish football
John Delaney has confirmed at today’s AGM that there’s no pressing financial concerns for the FAI. Obviously the prevailing climate remains challenging but we’re very fortunate to have him navigating the way forward for Irish football.
Delaney refusing to give press conferences now.
The FAI are €63 million in debt and are needing bail outs from UEFA just to pay the interest on that obscene debt. Turnover has plummeted by €6 million as the Ole Ole brigade desert the team in their droves.
€53 million is scheduled to be paid off between 2015 and 2018. Good luck with that.
[quote=“Sandymount Red, post: 804879, member: 1074”]Delaney refusing to give press conferences now.
The FAI are €63 million in debt and are needing bail outs from UEFA just to pay the interest on that obscene debt. Turnover has plummeted by €6 million as the Ole Ole brigade desert the team in their droves.
€53 million is scheduled to be paid off between 2015 and 2018. Good luck with that.[/quote]
Turnover is still higher than the 2010 level. Last year’s turnover was reduced to a lack of qualifying games but the turnover in 2011 was a big leap on the previous year so it’s just returned to the norm now, despite the difficult financial circumstances.
+1
revenue over the next few years
80 million in tv rights (next year and in 4 years)
5 million from glamour friendlies
40 million selling naming rights
potential 30 million from likely qualifications
Keane and O’Neill, if this is true, the man has truly outdone himself
Yes. Not one Judas, but two. You couldn’t make it up.
Where you hearing this?