The disgraced John Delaney

Absolute gombeen political move, if any of the stakeholders in the fai had a bit of respect they would be disgusted, needless to say this is as far as it will go

 Like father like son

t_rAndy wrote: We kind of laugh about car park training pitches, about FAI selling out to Spain in a world cup play off in the 60's, players sitting behind officials on planes and wasn't someone in theFAI offloading tickets to touts back in the day. My point being, this comedy of errors and incompetence with the people who have run football in this country in the past eventually becomes a bit funny when you look back. Similar to Irish politics. My take on it anyway, us Irish jus get on with the cards that are that are dealt to us then we find the funny side to it eventually

I think you may well be referring to Joe Delaney or as John Delaney knew him "Daddy".
For anyone unfamiliar with the story, it became known as merriongate:

It slowly emerged that, over the course of Ireland's participation in the 1990 and 1994 World Cup finals, the FAI had bought non-Irish match tickets and then swapped them for tickets for Republic of Ireland tickets through a London-based ticket agent. The Sunday Independent revealed that this practise had generated a loss of £154,000 in 1990 and £210,000 in 1994. Initially the FAI denied any knowledge of such dealings and tried to ride out the media storm.

The scandal took an unexpected twist when it emerged that the London agent was Greek and travelled under a couple of different names - Theo Severiades and Tio Marcos. The FAI admitted that they had dealings without realising that he was in fact a ticket tout. He had made off with £200,000 of FAI match ticket money.

It emerged that the FAI Honorary Treasurer Joe Delaney (father of the FAI Chief Executive John Delaney and former chairman of Waterford United) had been engaged in the ticket dealing with 'George the Greek' without the knowledge of the FAI Executive Committee. He had denied it at first but later issued a statement saying that he had personally stumped up £110,000 to cover the ticket shortfall.

In the end Joe Delaney had to come up with a total of £210,000 to compensate the FAI for his dealings with 'George the Greek'. He also apologised for not telling the FAI about his curious and highly unorthodox ticketing dealings.

- See more at: http://www.soccer-ireland.com/irish-football-history/merriongate.htm#.dpuf

We are a country that accepts mediocrity. Be it in politics, public services, adminsitration of the likes of the FAI, th workplace etc etc. Those who dont accept it, and desire change and those who get off their arses and do something or try to do something to highlight it and change things are sneered at and lookd down upon.

We kind of laugh about car park training pitches, about FAI selling out to Spain in a world cup play off in the 60's, players sitting behind officials on planes and wasn't someone in the FAI offloading tickets to touts back in the day. My point being, this comedy of errors and incompetence with the people who have run football in this country in the past eventually becomes a bit funny when you look back. Similar to Irish politics. My take on it anyway, us Irish jus get on with the cards that are that are dealt to us then we find the funny side to it eventually

t_rAndy wrote: Do you reckon one day we'll be able to look back and laugh at it all?

For some peoples sake, I hope we can.

Are we allowed smirk at the fact we drew with Liechenstein or the Harry Ramsdens challenge yet or is it too soon

t_rAndy wrote: Do you reckon one day we'll be able to look back and laugh at it all?

I think I'll cry before I laugh to be honest .. Few things ..

1) Did he (and Miss Sasanach) fly to Nyon ?
2) If so , why did he when UEFA were handing over tickets to numerous associations anyway ?
3) How much did this jolly-up cost the FAI who are (apparently) skint ?

It's obvious from the other thread some are still fooled by his spin but honestly , how thick does he think people are !!!

Do you reckon one day we'll be able to look back and laugh at it all?

ontheball wrote: I think it is very unfair of UEFA to make JD travel the whole way to Switzerland to grovel n negotiate for more tickets for us when they applied a different set of rules on the North, they just rang the IFA to tell them that they were giving them more tickets. What double standards.