Why are the FAI incompetent? Examples?

duffman13

Dots1982 wrote: »

I don’t think anyone is arguing that Delaney and the fai done a good job with the vantage club. They definitely made a balls of that.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying the decision for the stadium was intrinsically linked to the whole concept of vantage club. The business plan for the FAI around the Lansdowne redevelopment talked about how it would finance the stadium through a major ticket project. Try find that business plan anywhere now, you won't, its gone! That offer was on the table to bulk sell the tickets for a number of years

They rejected it and then said it never existed! There is nothing going to change in the foreseeable future unfortunately though

johnnyryan89

duffman13 wrote: »

I'm not saying that, I'm saying the decision for the stadium was intrinsically linked to the whole concept of vantage club. The business plan for the FAI around the Lansdowne redevelopment talked about how it would finance the stadium through a major ticket project. Try find that business plan anywhere now, you won't, its gone! That offer was on the table to bulk sell the tickets for a number of years

They rejected it and then said it never existed! There is nothing going to change in the foreseeable future unfortunately though

Only time there will ever be change is in the event of a United Ireland and that's when things will get real messy.

yabadabado

The Talking Bread wrote: »

So basically they couldn't win............... if they didn't give him (another) fund raiser they are criticised but if they do they are criticised for doing it only to look good.
The FAI can't be held accountable for Dave Langan's financial and personal life problems.
That last darkened out part re the tab is downright lies.

Of course they could win ,help with the benefit and don't have a free bar or try hold over cash to fund it.They helped with the fundraiser but it wasn't their initial idea either.
Iirc correctly it also took they a very long time to actually give him the money for some reason.
The last part most certainly is not lies.I know several people who were at the event and have no reason to doubt their story.

Pawwed Rig

To be fair the economy collapsed just when they needed to sell the Vantage tickets. Season ticket demand went off a cliff at the same time.

Zebra3

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

To be fair the economy collapsed just when they needes to sell the Vantage tickets. Season ticket demand went off a cliff at the same time.

IRFU had gotten out early and sold theirs.

Delaney asleep while milking the FAI for 400 large a year.

Fr Tod Umptious

Zebra3 wrote: »

IRFU had gotten out early and sold theirs.

Delaney asleep while milking the FAI for 400 large a year.

It's been argued a million times here.

IRFU have a different demographic than the FAI, a far higher income, corporate demographic.

And they had a national team that were highly ranked.

The glory days of the Charlton era were well in the rearview mirror at that stage for soccer.

The two situations are not as comparable as some would like.

yabadabado

All the more reason they should have taken the money from ISG for the ticketing/corporate plans.

Fr Tod Umptious

yabadabado wrote: »

All the more reason they should have taken the money from ISG for the ticketing/corporate plans.

I only heard about the ISG thing from this thread, I was only ever aware of the original Vantage club sales back around 2008.


They took a lot of flack here but I believe the FAI were very unlucky having to try and sell premium level seats during a recession both on and off the field.

Berserker

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

I only heard about the ISG thing from this thread, I was only ever aware of the original Vantage club sales back around 2008.

They took a lot of flack here but I believe the FAI were very unlucky having to try and sell premium level seats during a recession both on and off the field.

The product on the field was poor at that time, if I remember correctly. A lot of the fairweather fans would have had no interesting in buying long term tickets. You need to shift tickets like that when the going is good.

yabadabado

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

I only heard about the ISG thing from this thread, I was only ever aware of the original Vantage club sales back around 2008.


They took a lot of flack here but I believe the FAI were very unlucky having to try and sell premium level seats during a recession both on and off the field.

They sent me the brochure for that as I was a block booker.I was shocked at some of the pricing, Iirc it wasn't just premium they were trying to sell but also the normal seats at half way line etc.
Anyone able to confirm that?

Leroy42

Whatever about the business decisions regarding Vantage, the Aviva etc, surely the singular item that the FAI should be judged on is the progression of the game in Ireland.

They are starting from the basis of the worlds most popular sport, with a long history in Ireland. So they are in a much better position than many sports. They have government and public support.

They have a daily advertisement for their product (soccer) in the media (mainly EPL but still keeps the public interest) so getting people to play should never be a problem.

So what have they done to take advantage of the above? What systems have they put in place to get the maximum return from the potential that is there? I hear that England has moved away from Irish players to east Europeans and Africans etc. But what are the FAI doing to counteract that? Man City have a number of feed clubs, have the FAI arranged similar deals with LOI clubs?

The example of Southgate in the England shows (and its just one example so not proof of anything of course) that getting junior players into playing tournaments, and giving them the back-up and seriousness required may pay dividends in the future.

I just don't understand how the FAI can have gone through so much money over the last number of years and have almost nothing to show for it it terms of players. We have very few (if any) top class players and very few coming through.

Are the FAI looking to sponsor players to play in teams over in the UK, or further afield? Get the players playing in clubs at the top of their leagues, get them involved in development panels in some bigger clubs. Are they sending coaches to foreign clubs but learn something new?

osarusan

Since it became obvious that the growing juggernaut that is the EPL was casting a much wider net and couldn't be relied on to take and develop as many Irish players as before, the attempts to find alternative ways to develop them have been half-hearted and generally incompetent.

There are various competing factions within Irish football (the LOI, the schoolboy leagues etc) and the FAI have done an absolutely terrible job at getting them all pointed in the same direction and working towards the same goal.

I absolutely believe that their main concern is preserving their own jobs, and if that means appointing people/implementing policies which are not really in the interests of the development of football, they will do that.

duffman13

Leroy and Osarusan, spot on

The funny thing is, this could be seen coming as far back as 2005 when I began to notice a shift in the clubs that kids were going to in the UK and also the numbers going. Again this all based on Dublin based leagues but players were going to lower league academies and Scotland and the numbers going to United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc all dwindled dramatically.

In my opinion a centre of excellence in this country is desperately needed. My thoughts on it are that from 15 onwards, the top 30 or 40 prospects are taken on full time scholarships by the FAI. These players spend 3-4 years in a professional academy while continuing to receive education. At 18 or 19 they can graduate from the academy if anyone from the UK is interested then a fee needs to be paid to the FAI.

My preference for these players is almost akin to the US draft system. Players are allocated to teams in the LOI premier division and the FAI retains a stake in the players future value (50%ish) and should they be sold both the league and the FAI benefit.

So instead of having our talent pool being 20 or so players a year going to a UK academy we also have an additional 40 or so players benefiting both the league of Ireland and the FAI. We need to start thinking outside the box, Abbottstown has potential for a decent academy to be set up and solid structures.

The emerging talent programme needs to be pushed and intensive summer training camps put in place for younger age groups. It is bizarre we still look to the richest league in the world to try and develop or kids.

PARlance

duffman13 wrote: »

Leroy and Osarusan, spot on

The funny thing is, this could be seen coming as far back as 2005 when I began to notice a shift in the clubs that kids were going to in the UK and also the numbers going. Again this all based on Dublin based leagues but players were going to lower league academies and Scotland and the numbers going to United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc all dwindled dramatically.

In my opinion a centre of excellence in this country is desperately needed. My thoughts on it are that from 15 onwards, the top 30 or 40 prospects are taken on full time scholarships by the FAI. These players spend 3-4 years in a professional academy while continuing to receive education. At 18 or 19 they can graduate from the academy if anyone from the UK is interested then a fee needs to be paid to the FAI.

My preference for these players is almost akin to the US draft system. Players are allocated to teams in the LOI premier division and the FAI retains a stake in the players future value (50%ish) and should they be sold both the league and the FAI benefit.

So instead of having our talent pool being 20 or so players a year going to a UK academy we also have an additional 40 or so players benefiting both the league of Ireland and the FAI. We need to start thinking outside the box, Abbottstown has potential for a decent academy to be set up and solid structures.

The emerging talent programme needs to be pushed and intensive summer training camps put in place for younger age groups. It is bizarre we still look to the richest league in the world to try and develop or kids.

It's a decent line of thought imo but having players in the elite in an academy for 3,4,5 years without any competitive football surrounding it, is where it falls down for me.

If the youth national league grows, gets backed and succeeds, then I think we have these academies throughout the Country. And the better clubs will have better academies and get more players through the system. I've been following the Mayo U15 team quite closely, some great work going on there. But you see the likes of Shamrock Rovers coming down to play, think they're training 6/7 times a week, there's education involved as well I think. They had 5 or 6 internationals on their team. That's the kind of environment that works.

If the top 6,7,8 teams in the County can have elite players in that environment from 11 or 12 onwards then we'll see the rewards imo.

Leroy42

Should the LOI be treated in the same sort of way that the provinces are in rugby, i.e. there is a certain amount of central control?

So each team would have to have a certain level of academy players. So the LOI is seen very much as a feeder to the bigger leagues. Of course this requires that people accept that that is what it is, but in all honesty it is fooling no one to think differently. They spend a few weeks in the academy, then a few weeks in different clubs. Spread out depending on position, which a mandate to the club to take the academy learnings and get them into real world playing. Then rinse and repeat. So less actual match time, but mre quality learning and clear goals when in the squads.

This would of course require that the LOI coaches (if not the managers) were fully integrated in the approach, probably directly/partially funded by the FAI itself. This would ensure consistency in approach for the players and an increase in the coaching standards of the academy becomes a centre of excellence for coaches as well.

If the domestic scene is not sufficient to produce a steady stream of high level (I mean lower EPL type not simply Ronaldo world beaters) then the FAI need to look at alternatives. It seems to me that they simply bemoan the fact that Irish players are not getting the chances in England they used to, but seemingly are failing to do anything about it.

Ashbourne hoop

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Speaking of the FAI Tab.

There was a Dinner/Testimonial night for an old Ireland player called Dave Langan. A bunch of fans had heard he had fallen on hard times and arranged the usual Dinner, Bar and Speeches gig with Delaney and the FAI.

It seemed like the Delaney and the FAI came good on this one until a few months later Langan realized that the Free Bar was coming out of the money being raised for him.

Fans that attended were disgusted that they were not told about the source of the Free Bar. The FAI folk drank long into the night, pissing away Langan's retirement money.

Didn't know that. Shameful behaviour

johnnyryan89

duffman13 wrote: »

In my opinion a centre of excellence in this country is desperately needed. My thoughts on it are that from 15 onwards, the top 30 or 40 prospects are taken on full time scholarships by the FAI. These players spend 3-4 years in a professional academy while continuing to receive education. At 18 or 19 they can graduate from the academy if anyone from the UK is interested then a fee needs to be paid to the FAI.

While Ireland is a small country I think we'd need more than one centre of excellence for the simple fact that we can't afford any wastage when it comes to young players. Bigger countries can afford the odd player to slip through their grips but given the shortage of players we are producing we need to try and maximise the potential of everyone to get the highest numbers of players every year making the next step.

Belgium started doing this by having two teams per age group where the best of the best would play on team A and team B was specifically for kids born towards the end of the year who wouldn't be as developed as those born in the first couple of months so served as a late developers squad. The FAI had something similar but think they played one tournament and never played again. Was based around BMI and was for players who'd be classed as underweight and not as physically developed as others their age.

Another group you could throw in there are those seen as too small, how many kids are discarded at a young age because they are seen as too small to play. We had a lad playing with us at 11/12/13 who was gifted but looked like someone that was playing above his age group because he was so small. We tried to get him into Limerick but they'd look at him and think no, we'd tell them he's got two older brothers who were the same size and got a growth spurt at 15 and are now probably 6ft but they wouldn't listen. Now the lads 17, hit his growth spurt and players that were seen as more physically developed than him at 12 but not as good as him who are with Limerick are looking up at him.

Zebra3

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

It's been argued a million times here.

IRFU have a different demographic than the FAI, a far higher income, corporate demographic.

And they had a national team that were highly ranked.

The glory days of the Charlton era were well in the rearview mirror at that stage for soccer.

The two situations are not as comparable as some would like.

What has any of that got to do with anything?

Did you even read my post?

The IRFU got out there first and started selling their tickets. Delaney was procrastinating and by the time he tried to flog them there was a recession.

In the real world he’d have even held accountable and handed his cards. Not in the alternative universe of the FAI though were failure is not just accepted but is handsomely rewarded.

Fr Tod Umptious

Zebra3 wrote: »

What has any of that got to do with anything?

Did you even read my post?

The IRFU got out there first and started selling their tickets. Delaney was procrastinating and by the time he tried to flog them there was a recession.

In the real world he’d have even held accountable and handed his cards. Not in the alternative universe of the FAI though were failure is not just accepted but is handsomely rewarded.

People constantly compared the selling of IRFU "premium" packages to the selling of FAI "premium" packages.

But there are very important differences.

Rugby has a more affluent fan base than soccer and thus found it easier to sell "premium" level tickets.
Rugby both at national team level and provincial tea, level was successful, winning European Cups and (at the time) challenging for Grand Slams.
Again much easier to sell tickets if the team is successful.

Soccer on the other hand has a far less affluent fans base. Soccer is very much a working class sport.
The economy took a huge hit in 2008 which had a big negative effect of the target market of these tickets.
The nations team were S@@te at the time, scraping past San Mario, losing 5-2 to Cyprus.
It was always going to be a much harder sell to sell FAi tickets than the IRFU had selling theirs.

Were there problem on the FAI side, of course there was, there always is.
They after all appointed Stan, but the were certainly hamstrung by the state of the economy and the state of the national team at the time.

To argue otherwise is naive.

Note : When I say "premium" I mean in a general sense, something more than the run of the mill once off ticket purchase, but not specifically a "premium" level in a stadium.

Fr Tod Umptious

Berserker wrote: »

The product on the field was poor at that time, if I remember correctly. A lot of the fairweather fans would have had no interesting in buying long term tickets. You need to shift tickets like that when the going is good.

That last time the going was good was the World Cup in 2002, and that was well before the new stadium was even conceived

Leroy42

Fr. all that you state is completely correct, but why did the FAI not seem to be aware of any of this (excluding the recession) at the time. Delaney was, as per a post on this thread, offered a guaranteed €75m, but choose not to take it. Therefore, he was given the option to significantly reduce the risks. Based on all that you have pointed out it seems he took a gamble based on nothing more than hubris.

Fr Tod Umptious

Leroy42 wrote: »

Fr. all that you state is completely correct, but why did the FAI not seem to be aware of any of this (excluding the recession) at the time. Delaney was, as per a post on this thread, offered a guaranteed €75m, but choose not to take it. Therefore, he was given the option to significantly reduce the risks. Based on all that you have pointed out it seems he took a gamble based on nothing more than hubris.

Obviously what happened around the e75m seems incompetent but as I said in another post I was not aware of that until now.

I do however recall the original Vantage club sales and the furore around them.

I'm guessing that had the FAI flogged the Vantage club tickets for less people would complain that they sold them too cheap.

Leroy42

True, one can never keep everyone happy, but this thread is about examples of the FAI being incompetent and I think that is a very clear sign of it. Now one can try to pass it off as unlucky due to the timing of the recession, and certainly there are numerous business' that suffered from that which were otherwise very well run.

But even taking the recession out of the equation, it was always going to be a really tough sell. As you pointed out, their are a number of reasons why the FAI is different to the IRFU yet Delaney seems to have been completely oblivious to it. He seemed to think that just moving into a new world class stadium would magically make the team world class, or maybe he thought that being in the same stadium of a world class rugby team meant that the football team would simply have to treated the same. He was attempted to sell a product he simply didn't have.

People will cite that that he will bring the FAI to debt free to 2020 but at what cost to the association and the people in it? Certainly our national team is terrible, plays poor football and the players are sub-par (I don't mean anything personally just from a performance POV). Had Delaney taken the €75m back then and invested it into some of the schemes mentioned (or other ones) would be be starting to see the fruits of those now and so looking at a rising future rather than the bleak one that seems to be opening up to us?

What has he done in the X number of years he, and others, have been in charge that have had a positive impact on the present and future of Irish football? According to others on here, far more knowledgeable that myself, the old issues regarding LOI, school boys football, coaching etc are still very much in evidence.

If the national team really is the driver of everything else, and that certainly seems to be where the FAI focus is, then what are they doing to drive the growth and development of the team? Have they put in place succession plans for that when one manager leaves they can be replaced be someone else on roughly the same philosophy? Are the underage teams being coached in a consistent way to filter them up?

Clearly something is very seriously wrong with Irish football at the moment, and it is not simply the fault of MON or the players. They are simply the outcome of years of mistakes and a consistent failure to deal with the underlying issues.

duffman13

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Obviously what happened around the e75m seems incompetent but as I said in another post I was not aware of that until now.

I do however recall the original Vantage club sales and the furore around them.

I'm guessing that had the FAI flogged the Vantage club tickets for less people would complain that they sold them too cheap.

As a season ticket holder I attended probably every game from 1999 to around 2011. They tried to push vantage club on me and I refused. I continued to get tickets for 50 or 60 euro a pop till around 2009 or 2010 and I stopped because I could buy tickets to the majority of games through the FAI for half the price (€25-30)I was paying for the guarantee of getting a ticket to every game.

The whole ticket strategy at that time was stupidly backward. Your somewhat right regarding the affluent fans in Rugby. Back in the mid 00s the FAI corporate business was growing very quickly. A lot of friends of mine worked in construction and a lot of the employers had boxes and that. A few were looking at vantage club when the **** hit the wall in construction.

Tbh hindsight is great but that €75 million was a sensible hedge your bets offer. It gives the association stability for the future and ample funds to invest how they see fit. Delaney doesn't need to be an innovator or an outstanding executive but he needs to land the basics.

Fr Tod Umptious

Leroy42 wrote: »

True, one can never keep everyone happy, but this thread is about examples of the FAI being incompetent and I think that is a very clear sign of it. Now one can try to pass it off as unlucky due to the timing of the recession, and certainly there are numerous business' that suffered from that which were otherwise very well run.

But even taking the recession out of the equation, it was always going to be a really tough sell. As you pointed out, their are a number of reasons why the FAI is different to the IRFU yet Delaney seems to have been completely oblivious to it. He seemed to think that just moving into a new world class stadium would magically make the team world class, or maybe he thought that being in the same stadium of a world class rugby team meant that the football team would simply have to treated the same. He was attempted to sell a product he simply didn't have.

People will cite that that he will bring the FAI to debt free to 2020 but at what cost to the association and the people in it? Certainly our national team is terrible, plays poor football and the players are sub-par (I don't mean anything personally just from a performance POV). Had Delaney taken the €75m back then and invested it into some of the schemes mentioned (or other ones) would be be starting to see the fruits of those now and so looking at a rising future rather than the bleak one that seems to be opening up to us?

What has he done in the X number of years he, and others, have been in charge that have had a positive impact on the present and future of Irish football? According to others on here, far more knowledgeable that myself, the old issues regarding LOI, school boys football, coaching etc are still very much in evidence.

If the national team really is the driver of everything else, and that certainly seems to be where the FAI focus is, then what are they doing to drive the growth and development of the team? Have they put in place succession plans for that when one manager leaves they can be replaced be someone else on roughly the same philosophy? Are the underage teams being coached in a consistent way to filter them up?

Clearly something is very seriously wrong with Irish football at the moment, and it is not simply the fault of MON or the players. They are simply the outcome of years of mistakes and a consistent failure to deal with the underlying issues.

I think to that's a great summation of how the man was thinking.

secman

Main problem with the FAI is it's a gravy train for a small amount of people who are on 360,000 plus. Our whole FAI set up does not warrant salaries of that kind. We need to take it back from dictatorship that currently exists and build it again... never ever to become a gravy train for ANYONE.