http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2007/1106/fifa.html
great lobbying from the big man
I was listening to this on Matt Cooper last night, some very interesting stuff alright. But I ask the question, who the fook would want to do this!!
Under the new suggestion put forward by world soccerâs governing body, players born in the Republic of Ireland and holding Irish nationality could choose to play for Northern Ireland.
Looks like the status quo will pretty much be maintained. Would like to read something more conclusive from FIFA before praising Delaney yet.
some were criticising him before when it was leaked they lost out so just redressing the balance
Itâs pretty funny that the IFA pursued this and now it looks like itâs going to end up being an embarrassing failure for them (if the official FIFA announcement is as anticipated).
Anyone ever read the âOur Wee Countryâ forum? Itâs a Norn Iron forum and theyâre foaming at the mouth over this.
A very Niamh Horan article
Is it John and his family?
For three days like.
To stay relevant
1 THE END
Simon Cox smiles as he reflects on his long-held desire to keep playing professionally until he was 40, a craving borne from the belief that the ball would always be in his court.
He didnât envisage the mission ending last weekend, six months after his 34th birthday, following discussions with his wife Samantha and his parents.
âI feel like quit is a horrible word,â he laughs, âIâd like to think of it as stepping away.â
The brutal truth of his business is that players donât always retire; itâs the game that retires them. In the summer after his return from Australia, and the end of a Covid-curtailed 16-month stay with Western Sydney Wanderers, Cox put the feelers out to contacts.
There was realism in his networking. Cox scored 17 goals at League One level with the Southend in the season and a half before his relocation Down Under and he pursued options in that division and below it in League Two and the Conference.
âYou pick up the phone to people youâve played against, people who are managing now. I must have phoned or met numerous managers across those leagues,â continues Cox, speaking from his home in Essex.
The same answers came back, either to Cox directly or his representatives.
âWe have our targets, heâs not one of themâ
âWeâre looking at a younger squad.
A final ring-around once the transfer window closed confirmed that not even his free agent status was tempting enough for a club to bite.
âNone of them wanted me,â he says, matter of factly. âIt was one of them where youâre (like) . . . oh wow . . . 500 games, nearly 150 goals across all leagues and international level, how are you turning around and saying no? But you have to check your ego and say, you know what, if the phone is not ringing, itâs not ringing. Take it on the chin and say, âMy time is done.â
âIâve had 17 years as a pro and feel like Iâve done alright. But I realised when I came back that football really quickly forgets about you.â
2 WHOâS THIS GUY?
How will football remember Simon Cox? The game moves fast and, to some readers, the name may ring a bell without producing a picture.
In Ireland, the snapshot will always be Euro 2012 and that summer in Poland. For the infamous chasing at the hands of Spain, Giovanni Trapattoniâs pre-match curve ball was to drop Kevin Doyle and introduce 25-year-old Cox, Doyleâs one-time Reading understudy, as a second striker.
Heâd been around the squad for a year, scoring three times in 16 appearances, but large swathes of the Irish public knew little about a player who had been in West Bromâs Premier League squad for the previous two seasons.
Trapattoni picked the team, yet Cox always felt that assistant Marco Tardelli was his main ally. They bonded in gym discussions before training, the player absorbing tales of World Cup victory. âHis English was a lot better than Trap,â he says. âAnd he liked the way I played. I think my relationship with that management team was more to do with my relationship with Marco than Trap.â
The Spanish brief was beyond him, though, tasked with the impossible job of linking midfield and attack against the best international side of the era. At the interval, he was called ashore but that outing combined with sub appearances against Croatia and Italy meant he got on the pitch in every match in that tournament. Three losses for Ireland, but a personal victory in his eyes.
âRegardless of the results, it was probably the best moment in my career,â says Cox, with his only Premier League goal, a stunner at White Hart Lane a year earlier, the only clear rival for the affections.
âIâve so many pictures of the Euros, winning the Championship and playing in the Premier League against some of the best players in the world. Itâs scary for someone who never expected to make it as high as I did.
âI didnât have the elite mindset and elite mentality at the time to forget about that sort of stuff and just play. I went there as a fan who had done really well to get to these amazing grounds and to play against these unbelievable players. If Iâm being really honest, I probably didnât worry about what the results were because I was living the dream as it was.â
He was a happy-go-lucky character in those days, far from a deep thinker, and he didnât always nail the first impressions.
Stephen Hunt has spoken openly about how his old clubmate riled him. Trapattoniâs preference for Cox at the Euros was agony.
âIâm quite a serious person now,â says Cox. âBack then, I felt I was at the top of my game. Iâd got into the Ireland set-up and I was ready to attack and nothing and nobody was going to get in my way. You get older, grow up and realise you were a little a**ehole sometimes.â
Entering his first Irish training session, he didnât recognise the laws of the group. Cox knew a core of the squad from his Reading and West Brom days but his attention was elsewhere.
âThey werenât the ones I was worried about integrating with,â he explains. âIt was the higher end, the Robbie Keanes, the Richard Dunnes, the Shay Givens, the Damien Duffs.
âThey do little boxes before training and I didnât realise the younger groups stayed one side and the hierarchy went the other way. I found myself over on the Robbie Keane side. I was thinking, âI want to play with you, I want to play with the best playersâ and all of a sudden it was like, âOof, whoâs this guy?â
âI could probably guarantee you that none of those four I mentioned had ever heard of me so Iâd imagine it was a little bit like, âHow dare you get into our box, youâre not deserving to be in this boxâ but for me it was like a test.
âThey probably thought I was cocky but my thinking was if Iâm going to be here for a little while in terms of years and games and appearances, youâre going to have to get used to me. I wanted to impress them.â
There was another angle to fitting in that he was wary of, however, and he says he felt in the same boat as Sean St Ledger and Liam Lawrence on account of their shared background as grandparent-rule converts.
âOstracised is not the right word,â he says. âBut you had to go about things in a different way and be careful of what you were saying in case the backlash is âYou donât deserve to be here, you werenât born in the country, youâre taking someoneâs spot because your grandparents were born in Irelandâ and youâre making a way for yourself without earning it.
âThat sort of mindset went away as the tournament got closer and, afterwards, it got a lot easier. For me, it was trying to let my football do as much of the talking early on, and then when it got to the stage where it felt like I was accepted and more than just a one-hit wonder, I started to integrate a bit further outside of the squad when there were chances to sit down and have chats with people because, ultimately, if I felt I was going to be there for four or five years, youâve to get to know the people you are going to be there with.â
3 DEAR JOHN
The time-frame was optimistic. Two years after the Euros, Cox won his last cap in a 5-1 drubbing at the hands of Portugal, although he didnât know it at the time. Martin OâNeill and Roy Keane extended no further invitations, nor did they explain why.
Euro 2012 was the peak, but in another way he feels it was also the beginning of the end. Trapattoniâs last year was fraught and he exited in September 2013. Noel Kingâs subsequent appointment as caretaker led to Coxâs first exclusion from a squad since his debut. He has his own theories about the reason.
âI think Noel was told not to pick me,â he declares. âThatâs me speculating. I donât know if that was the case.â
This invites elaboration.
âJohn Delaney was a big issue for me. We had a big incident after the Euros, after the Italy game. Prior to that, I got on really well with him but after this we massively, massively fell out.â
Itâs a story he hasnât shared before and there is a certain reluctance to go there. The scene was the team hotel in Poznan, with players, staff and other members of the official party finishing off the tournament with a few drinks.
Cox was in the corner with a group of players and rose from his seat to go to the bar where he found himself next to Delaney and a sponsor.
âI said, âWould you like a drink?â and they said, âWeâre good thanksâ,â he says. âAnd then John sort of starts hitting me around the face in a jokey way (Cox does a mini-impersonation of the CEO playfully patting and grabbing at his cheek).
âI let that one slide. I put my order in and was waiting for my drinks and he started doing it again. I was like, âListen, youâre going to have to stop thatâ and then he started doing it again. The sponsor told him to stop. I turned around to John and said, âListen, John, if you do that again, Iâm going to lay you out here in front of everyone.ââ
Immediately, the mood changed.
âAll of a sudden, his nose was out of place. I think it was because it was in front of his big contact. Even to the point where we flew home and I was sat next to Shane Long on the plane. John would shake everyoneâs hand as he got off the plane and he shook Shaneâs hand and moved on from me.â
Later in the year, Cox reported to Dublin where he was beckoned over by Trapattoni in the lobby of the hotel.
ââYou and the CEO, you have a problem?â said the Italian, before giving a version of events that didnât tally with Coxâs version. âI said to Trap, âNo, thereâs no issue on my part, no problem from me.â
âIâd got on alright with John, Iâd seen him out a few times and had a few drinks with him. I do think he sort of wanted to be the hero in it, he wanted to be the main focal point, the nice guy in it all. He went into the fanzones many a time and would buy drinks for supporters and I felt like he was buying support.
âI remember being on the way back from one of the games and we were talking on the plane and he was like, âTrapâs a big score for Irish footballâ and I was saying, âYouâre not wrongâ. I had good chats with him, but then all of a sudden, he thought he was a bit braver than he probably was and I think it put his nose out of place a little bit by someone sort of stepping up to him.
âI do think that was probably how my Ireland career tailed off a little bit as well. Even when I was selected under Roy and Martin, John would say hello to everyone as they got on the plane and he would miss me out altogether. Iâd thought to myself that with Royâs history with John Delaney, Iâm going to have someone here in my corner. But after 2014 I was never picked again.â
When Eamonn Dolan â a massive influence in Coxâs life during his formative days at Reading â passed away in 2016, Delaney was present at the funeral with Dolanâs brother Pat. âHe didnât say anything to me that day either,â Cox recalls. âHe never let it go.â
Delaney did not respond to a request for comment.
4 THE NEXT STEP
That was the summer when Cox ended a second stint with Reading and joined Southend, a drop to the third tier. Irelandâs Euro 2016 experience was watched from afar.
He can trace the club descent back to 2012 too.
New West Brom gaffer Steve Clarke called him on the eve of the Spain fixture to introduce himself in a chat that left Cox feeling good about his prospects. Upon his return, he went to the training ground to pick up his car and bumped into the Scot who explained that he was looking to bring in Romelu Lukaku and let a forward go so he should consider his options. From his biggest high, it was a shuddering comedown.
So the bags were packed for Nottingham Forest where there was chopping and changing of managers and Coxâs refusal to be a make-weight in a deal to bring in Michail Antonio spelling the end.
âIâd started pre-season well but Stuart Pearce pulled me in and says I donât want you here anymore,â he sighs. Nigel Adkins brought him back to Reading but his exit and the arrival of Clarke was an unwelcome twist. There was a reprieve when Cox struck up a rapport with loanee Glenn Murray, imploring Clarke and the club to pursue a permanent deal which never materialised. He lost his place and had an unhappy loan at Bristol City before a handful of appearances under Clarkeâs replacement Brian McDermott brought down the curtain on his Championship stay.
âIâm not someone to blame people,â he stresses. âI felt over the course of three clubs â West Brom, Forest and Reading again â I was let down. I was never ever seen as the main guy. Or every time I was doing well, I was always knocked back. I never got a chance to build on 2012.â
During his four years at Southend, he started thinking about the future and the quirks of his transient profession.
âItâs a big discussion in dressing-rooms as you get older. You start talking to people and ask them, âHow many friends are you going to come out of football with?ââ
In his case, the answer is four or five. Thatâs out of around 400 or 500 workmates by his reckoning.
âI had some really good friendships,â he says. âAnd you can keep in touch on social media and that but in terms of people I talk to every day or every week, youâre talking five people. Itâs not many.â
Life takes over. Relocating to Australia was about changing scenery, but the pandemic severely complicated his stay, especially when Samantha informed him that she was pregnant.
Joy was followed by stress around logistics, the restart of football and quarantine rules. The long story short is that he was in Australia in February while his daughter Ella-Rae was born in England. Beginning fatherhood on Zoom was difficult, and Cox made the decision to come home before the A League season ended.
âThe money doesnât really matter,â he explains. âI wanted to be part of the family and get to know my daughter.â
Retirement was an unexpected consequence. The fact that Samantha has a good job in wealth management means there isnât a bill-paying urgency about his situation; itâs more about the desire for the sense of involvement again. At different intervals, he describes the uncertainty as both daunting and exciting.
âIâve never had to fill out a CV or write a cover letter or go for an interview,â muses the A Licence holder. âMy experience is 17 years of playing. People ask, âWhatâs your coaching experience?â, and itâs, âNot a lotâ.â By his own admission, heâs a novice in this territory and is therefore prepared to start at a lower rung and work his way up. There are countless others in the same boat.
âItâs tough to get interviews unless youâve been a top, top player,â he admits. âYouâre not going to have a knock on the door saying, âWe want you as manager.â Iâm not the biggest name in the world so youâve got to get a start and build from there.â
After scaling the ladder as a player, his second journey starts here.
Soccer
Most Read
Most Watched
[
Video
](TikTok video shows officer pointing a gun in a Dublin station - Independent.ie)
[
Video
](Finbar Furey and John Sheahan give stunning musical tribute to Paddy Moloney - Independent.ie)
[
Video
](Attention-stealing dog keeps stealing limelight from TikTok dancer - Independent.ie)
[
Video
](Keith Earls opens up about Bipolar 2 diagnosis on Late Late Show - Independent.ie)
[
Video
;
He seems quite bitter
Never heard of him
Offering to knock the bollox out of people isnât always the best career move
Do you remember the time we started with Long Cox up front ???
No then
Former FAI boss trying to prevent investigators from accessing information on his business dealings and divorce
5
John Delaney in bid to block emails. Picture by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
June 26 2022 02:30 AM
A court filing has revealed that records the former Football Association of Ireland chief executive John Delaney is trying to keep from a criminal investigation include hundreds of email exchanges with FAI executives who worked on his personal business ventures and divorce case.
The High Court reserved judgment last month on an application from the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) to access 1,123 emails and a small batch of hard-copy records seized from the FAI headquarters in February 2020. Delaney claims the records are legally privileged.
The ODCE, which includes seconded gardaĂ on its investigation team, is examining Delaneyâs use of FAI financial resources.
A spreadsheet submitted to Judge Leonie Reynolds in the case and obtained by the Sunday Independent shows Delaney claims privilege over hundreds of emails with Karl Heffernan and Rea Walshe, two senior FAI executives who also helped him with personal business ventures and family law matters.
Neither Walshe, a solicitor who became the FAIâs interim CEO when Delaney became executive vice-president in March 2019, nor Heffernan, a former banker recruited by Delaney to be the FAIâs commercial director, work for the FAI now.
A small number of emails with Eamon Breen, the FAIâs former finance director, are also claimed to be privileged due to them relating to family law. Privilege is claimed by Delaney on emails sent to his sister, Jane OâDriscoll, his brother, Paul, and his former fiancee, Emma English.
He is also seeking to prevent gardaĂ seeing emails with Cahir OâHiggins, a solicitor who is said to have advised on family law issues. OâHiggins is representing former FAI honorary secretary Michael Cody, who gardaĂ attached to the ODCE have interviewed about Delaneyâs contract, which included a âŹ3m âgolden handcuffsâ deal about which most of the FAI board knew nothing.
Other emails Delaney is seeking to shield include three with Terry Prone, a PR guru, that are said to concern defamation and reputation issues, and a number sent to Des Grace, his long-time accountant based in Kerry.
Among the transactions under investigation is an FAI payment of âŹ100,000 made in February 2019 to the client account of Paddy Goodwin, Delaneyâs solicitor, who also acted for the FAI on some matters. The focus of this line of enquiry is understood to be the source of the payment.
The ODCE is also investigating transactions involving Pillarview, a company owned by friends of Delaney, that refinanced some of his business debts arising from a development company called JMPHE. Karl Heffernan was listed as an official contact for Pillarview in company filings before it entered liquidation in 2020.
Among the emails listed between Delaney and Heffernan are some prepared âin the context of family law proceedingsâ. In a series of emails, Heffernan is copied on discussions between Delaney and his Bank of Ireland private wealth managers on the subject of âproperty financeâ.
There are more than 50 emails involving Heffernan that relate to Pillarview or JMPHE, over which Delaney has claimed privilege.
He notes that Pillarview or JMPHE, of which he is a director, may also claim privilege on some emails. He claims the records relate to his family law case or contain âcompany law adviceâ.
A series of emails relates to a âshareholder disputeâ while others concern Gerfurn, another Delaney company, and Ronstrap, a separate firm.
Delaney claims privilege over dozens of emails involving his partners in JMPHE, who include Hilary Quinlan, a former Fine Gael councillor in Waterford.
Quinlan is also included on some emails sent to Delaneyâs sister on the subject of a property in Tralee.
Many emails involving Rea Walshe relate to Delaneyâs defamation claims against various media organisations.
However, there are also emails where Delaney said the FAI solicitor was âa legal adviserâ on âcompany formation for property transactionsâ.
Walsh is also described as a âlegal adviserâ on a series of emails relating to family law matters where Heffernan is also included as a âfinancial adviserâ.
Walshe is also said to have assisted Delaney in completing his Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI) registration after it emerged he was not entitled to call himself a chartered accountant.
Walshe is said by Delaney to have given legal advice on his acquisition of an âŹ868,000 five-bedroom house in Aughrim, Co Wicklow, in 2019. Delaney is currently renting the property out for âŹ3,000 a month. Another group of emails list Walshe as a legal adviser on âfamily law/defamation proceedings/ settlement agreementsâ.
Delaney, who now runs a consultancy business, Delay Ltd, in London, is also trying to shield a number of emails with Finance One, a financial advisory firm that advised on âre-finance of personal businessâ, a property purchase and a company called Spinelcrest.
The privilege claim is also made in relation to a series of emails Delaney sent to his sister and to former fiancee English relating to family law, âproperty adviceâ and âbusiness mattersâ.
Delaney is claiming privilege over documents relating to legal advice he received from A & L Goodbody about the Moran Inquiry into the Olympic Council of Ireland Rio ticketing scandal and subsequent defamation cases.
The ODCE is investigating why A&L were instructed to pay some of Delaneyâs defamation settlements to Pillarview.
Delaney has also claimed privilege over correspondence with Breen, the FAIâs former finance director, Declan Conroy, a consultant who has worked on a number of the FAIâs tournament bids, and Peter Sherrard, the FAIâs former PR director, who is now chief executive of the Olympic Federation of Ireland.
A large number of emails on various subjects were copied to Denise Cassidy, Delaneyâs former PA.
In court, the ODCE questioned how privilege can be maintained by Delaney if the correspondence was sent to non-lawyers. It also submitted that litigation privilege cannot apply if the legal cases the emails relate to have concluded.
Delaney insists that litigation in 78 cases is âextantâ as there are ongoing disputes between him and the lawyers involved about âwho is the client, who is entitled to receive compensation and who is responsible for the feesâ.
There are also four emails marked as âAsian fundâ that Delaney says relate to family law.
The ODCE has said it requires access to Delaneyâs emails to assist its criminal investigation into the FAI and Delaney that began in March 2019 after complaints were made to the corporate watchdog.
In April 2019, Deloitte, the FAIâs then auditors, made a statutory filing reporting the FAI for failing to keep proper books of accounts. The FAI has set aside âŹ3.5m to pay fines and unpaid taxes from the Delaney era.
A Sport Ireland audit of the FAI found the association made payments of almost âŹ1m to cover Delaneyâs personal expenses, including his 50th birthday party and rent, over his last five years there.
While Delaney made several repayments, Kosi, the accountants hired by Sport Ireland, calculated that the âexcess benefitâ he enjoyed amounted to âŹ724,629.42.
The ODCE has told the court Delaney cannot claim litigation privilege over records relating to court cases or legal actions if those cases, some of which stretch back to 2011, have concluded.
However, Delaney has complained that A&L Goodbody, the FAIâs former solicitors, and Paddy Goodwin, a solicitor who acted for both Delaney and the FAI, have refused him access to case files and he has been unable to compile an âexhaustive listâ of his litigation at the FAI.
In his most recent affidavit, signed on April 8 at the offices of Walker Law in Bracknell, England, Delaney listed 78 legal actions he believed the 1,123 FAI emails the ODCE is seeking to access relate to.
Delaney said there were âongoing disputesâ between him and his former solicitors about who is the client in the cases and who is responsible for the fees.
Although he âdoes not know the precise point at which the litigation liesâ, he believes each one of the cases is âextantâ.
If that was the case, then litigation privilege would still apply to the emails.
A&L Goodbody cases
Patrick Goodwin and Co cases
Sheridan Quinn Solicitors
Emer Delaney v John Delaney â Family Law. Circuit and High Court, 2014
Kieran T Flynn Solicitors
Property transactions in Tipperary
He must have pulled some shit in the divorce hearing.
Naturally