Five years since John Delaney left FAI with a whole pile of problems
There was even talk of the FAI folding and trying to hit the reboot button under a new name. To keep the lights on in Abbotstown, the FAI did need a huge bail-out from the government.
The email announced John Delaney's departure, and the timing was right out of John Delaney's playbook.
At 11.15pm on Saturday, September 28, 2019, there was a ping in the inbox of journalists. That email from the FAI contained a statement that Delaney was leaving the organisation with immediate effect.
Releasing news late on a Saturday night is textbook media management. If you want to bury a story, the timing matters. Of course, the storm that had been brewing around Delaney for months ensured that didn't happen.
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It was five years ago this weekend, and there are still ongoing investigations into Delaney's time running the FAI.
Just over two months after Delaney's departure, the first case of Covid 19 was reported in China.
We all know what happened next. The FAI had been looking forward to hosting Euro 2020 games in Dublin. The tournament didn't happen in 2020 and, by the time it did take place, Dublin was ruled out.
There was even talk of the FAI folding and trying to hit the reboot button under a new name. To keep the lights on in Abbotstown, the FAI did need a huge bail-out from the government.
Maybe it's due to the blur of lockdown but, looking back on the Delaney years, it's hard to believe it all happened.
Many all around the country thought they knew the man in the green tie with the broad grin. Shoeless and jazzing it up with the Irish fans.
Buying rounds in jammed bars on foreign shores with a bit of plastic.
He'd smile on all who smiled at him, but keep mum when anyone who asked questions stuck a recording device in his direction.
It wasn't always the case. No Irish sports administrator was better at playing the media.
From the day that he first stepped inside the old HQ on Merrion Square, Delaney cultivated journalists that helped his rise within the FAI.
He got so pally with the celebrated RTE panel that John Giles and Eamon Dunphy were invited to his 50th birthday party in Mount Juliet.
It took a while for scales to fall from some eyes, but Delaney ran out of supporters when he most needed them.
That he survived so long is hard to credit. Think of 2017, a relatively quiet year in his tenure as FAI CEO.
That year began with Delaney lending his voice to calls for a 48 team World Cup.
"Any opportunity that gets Ireland a greater opportunity to get to a World Cup in theory and principle I would support," he said.
A few months on, the FAI AGM announced that the governing body had a bank debt of e34m and that participation in the European Championship delivered a profit of e4.5m.
"I think it reflects well on the association that we now have a very manageable debt of €34 million on the Aviva Stadium and the biggest issue now is do the FAI reduce that €34 million by 2020 to nil or do we in part reinvest bigly, with some big sums into the game?,'' said Delaney.
Yes, he used the word 'bigly'. You couldn't script this guy.
Delaney would pose for glossy Sunday magazine photo shoots, do charity dancing gigs with models, and turn up outside chippers chatting to all and sundry in the wee small hours.
Truly, there was never anyone like him in the higher echelons of Irish sport.
It says it all about UEFA that plenty in the organisation were charmed by him and he was tipped for high office.
It wasn't just football people that fell for him. Delaney was once seen as the heir apparent to Pat Hickey with the Olympic Council of Ireland, but Delaney distanced himself quickly from the OCI when things got hairy at Rio 2016.
He had that knack for self-preservation, and was mindful of his international reputation.
Back in June, 2015, Delaney became a global star, after the news became public that he'd received a hefty cheque from Sepp Blatter to go away and keep quiet over the fuss over Thierry Henry's handball a few months earlier.
Delaney's face was on newspapers, websites and TV screens from Delhi to Delaware.
The scandal that had enveloped FIFA at the time was one of the biggest sporting stories of the 21st century.
Ireland - an Accrington Stanley in world football terms - was right in the middle of it, thanks to a fateful meeting between Delaney and Blatter.
In Irish politics, they used to call it the 'chicken and chips circuit', describing those endless visits to functions, dinner dances etc that aspiring politicians make.
Delaney devoted himself to the Irish soccer equivalent.
Many clubs in all corners of the country felt they owed him, felt that he delivered for them.
Any GAA fans walking up the steep hill to an Ulster Championship match in Clones would have been taken by a sign on the way.
It pointed to 'John Delaney Park'.
Clones Town FC weren't the only club to pay tribute to JD. There are plaques from Bantry to Buncrana bearing witness to the day that John Delaney deigned to visit.
We'll never forget what happened at the Pod Dubnom Stadium in the Slovakian city of Zilina nine years ago.
Ireland had drawn 1-1 and, as is customary for security reasons, the Irish supporters had been held back and they kept their spirits up by singing and chanting to pass the time.
Then our attention was caught by a besuited figure striding across the field towards the Green Army.
It was none other than Delaney and, when he reached the Irish fans, he went through some Obama-esque fist-bumps with several dozen supporters.
Just hours earlier, he'd financed the booze train from Bratislava, which elevated him to sainthood status with many of the faithful.
The fist-bumps confirmed the view that the night saw the birth of a new Irish hero. John Delaney Superstar.
There were other nights in far-flung places where he'd race to the travelling fans and throw his green tie into their midst.
They'd fight over it like it was a precious relic.
Did any of those same fans fire tennis balls on to the Aviva pitch in protest at Delaney's tenure? We wouldn't be surprised.
Delaney's legacy five years on? A sport on its knees in Ireland. But you didn't need to be told that.
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