The extraordinary relationship between Denis O’Brien and Irish football took yet another twist when he was named an Honorary President of the FAI last week. This is a man who was found, in the course of a tribunal, to have donated huge sums of money to a politician, who then gave him information needed to secure a mobile phone license. The precise wording of the tribunal report reads as follows:
“Mr Michael Lowry, in the course of his Ministerial office, as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, by his acts and decisions, conferred a benefit on Mr Denis O’Brien, a person who made payments to Mr Lowry… and who was also the source of money in accounts held in the name of and for the benefit of Mr Lowry…”
In other words, in black and white, a tribunal of the State found that payments were made by Denis O’Brien to Michael Lowry and that Michael Lowry then secured a mobile phone license for him. Call it what you want, but that is what he was found to have done.
But you know this already. We all knew this years ago. The name of Denis O’Brien is now as synonymous with whatever you want to call the above activities, as it is with his business success. At least in Ireland.
Since the late noughties however, Denis O’Brien has turned his hand to a lot of other work. His activities in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake alongside Bill and Hillary, did indeed play a huge part helping that nation recover – yes he may have made money in doing so, but no-one can begrudge that in and of itself; and the views of the international community, such as those hugely-compromised Clintons, are a matter of repeated public records. The closets of people in those particular circles tend to be riddled with skeletons, however, and even the latest RTÉ documentary reputational rehabilitation attempt cannot rewrite Justice Moriarty’s findings. His main role as far as our game is concerned, as you all know, was to pay half the wages of Giovanni Trappatoni from 2008 and then of Martin O’Neill until this year. All in all, €12m was “donated” by one rich businessman into the accounts of 2 rich sportsmen over the guts of a decade.
And we’re supposed to be impressed? We, the Irish soccer community, are supposed to be grateful for this benevolence? And we are supposed to be ok with the bestowing of a great honour on this man on our behalf even though his total contribution to Irish soccer was never invested in the game itself? The very presence of John Delaney in all of this is just further evidence of the sheer Oirishness of the whole thing. A man, Delaney, being paid an outrageous sum of money by international standards, metaphorically bending over so that a billionaire, found to have paid huge sums of money to a politician, can funnel outrageous sums of money to an underperforming pair of dinosaurs (Trap and MO’N). No wonder they have both seemed so arrogant and dismissive of dissent, or even light probing from the taxpayer via Tony O’Donoghue in the case of O’Neill. They’ve been largely bulletproof, shielded by this tag team of fellow travellers. Trap’s O’Brien-funded reign ended in absolute disgrace with several kicks to the soccer community’s teeth along the way. O’Neill has the Nations League to save himself, but it’s a long, long road to redemption after a dreadful, dreadful, performance in Dublin last November. And he can do so without O’Brien’s money at long last, as he no longer pays the wages. One wonders if the inflated pay-packet is now permanent – that we can never hire a manager for anything less. That is a truly worrying prospect – how much FAI money will be diverted from the game to men who will generally have made their big money before taking the job.
Let me remind you of the relationship that has developed between Delaney and O’Brien. (Satire really is dead.)
Of Delaney, O’Brien once said:
“John Delaney could run anything. He could run UEFA. He could run FIFA, certainly better than Sepp Blatter”
I’m not a Delaney basher. I can understand in Ireland, where GAA is intrinsically linked to the very idea of Irish nationhood and funded with that in mind, and Rugby intrinsically linked to the moneyed classes, that finding any room for football is difficult, and the presence of the Premier League monolith on our doorstep all adds up to a difficult task for the FAI and whoever is the CEO. I also had no problem with him embarrassing the aforementioned Blatter into a €5m gift. Fair play I thought.
This relationship with O’Brien, however, is too much to take. I’m conscious that the media mogul is prone to litigation and I chuckled to myself when the comments were closed on this story on the Journal on Saturday. He has even threatened Waterford Whispers News to the point where they took down one of their stories. He is not a man who I believe represents all that is good about community, society or sport in this country and I despised his role in funding our managers, regardless of what scant sporadic successes we’ve had during those reigns.
That’s a personal view that I am entitled to hold. I don’t regard him as worthy of the title “Honorary President”, whatever such title means. I don’t want to see his name in the programmes alongside the likes of Séamus Coleman or James McLean. Such a view I would hold even without O’Brien’s past, because I despise the corporatisation of our game in any case.
The World Cup this year showcased exactly why international football matters so much. It’s an escape from the over-hyped bullshit of the Premier League, La Liga and the Champions League; where Messi, Neymar and Ronaldo were brought down to earth with a bang – their wage packets and endorsements made irrelevant by lesser stars. Even the traditionally overblown English showed work ethic and togetherness mattered more than greed and selfishness. It showed that playing for your country matters more and that supporting your country can sometimes bring you to the heights of incomparable joy alongside the more regular periods of incomparable misery.
Meanwhile as we Irish looked on, we were safe in the knowledge that a billionaire was regarded by our CEO as worthy of the sporting equivalent of a knighthood. John, it’s bad enough that we are still expected to parade around with your latest corporate partner on our chests – the only nation on earth whose soccer fans must have the sponsor on their jersey – but this is a step too far. You’ve let us down again.
A Yard of Grass 