The disgraced John Delaney

See, this is a different argument to the one you made before and actually has some merit.

For example, there are plenty of organisations out there who simply do not settle personal injury claims, even if they are seemingly meritorious, unless they are absolutely stonewall claims. The reason for that is to dissuade those at the more spurious end of the scale. And the thing is, it does work. Because solicitors know who those organisations are, they are less likely to recommend taking claims against them. If you have a reputation for having an absolutely hard-denial approach to claims, you are less likely to be sued. Those claims you lose might cost you more than if you'd settled, but with less claims to begin with and less claims settled, you might well end out on top.

In this case, a similar approach might have had its merits. However, an approach like that depends on one key thing: you have to be able to afford to lose a claim or two, now and again, as the price for the approach. To put it another way, it makes sense if you are dealing with a decent number of claims and the maths make sense. When you are only dealing with one claim though, the numbers become very different. In that case, the risk is not so much losing one or two claims from a large number of claims, with only a tiny risk of losing them all, but the risk is losing one claim in a way which costs you an absolute fortune.

It does not make sense to fight a case where a defeat could be challenging to the liquidity and solvency of the entire organisation. In paying off Delaney, the FAI were not only avoiding a risk of having to pay him more, they were avoiding the risk of bankrupting the association. In that case, there are more benefits when asking whether it was a price worth paying in the context of the claim. There's also no doubt Delaney knew that, which makes it more galling, but it doesn't change the fundamental calculation from the FAI's side.

If the FAI were flush with cash, yes, they could afford to take the chance and afford to sack him and deal with whatever challenges come. There's no doubt that it might have been preferable, even if they lost, given the benefit of catharsis and the benefit of showing others that what happened was not acceptable. However, they are not flush with cash. In a hypothetical world, it might have been worth it, but in the real world, the long term interests of the FAI are best served by the course that keeps them in business. That's the cold reality of it.

The timing is a separate matter of course and we'll have to wait and see what the reports say before making any sweeping statements on it, but on the basis of what we currently know and have reason to suspect, it is safe to say that the decision made does not fly in the face of reason nor does it appear to be against the long term interests of the FAI.