Cost of not playing Israel would have been more than 10m euro, says FAI chief
The Football Association of Ireland’s chief executive faced Oireachtas committee questioning over the handling of last week’s game against Israel.
The cost of not fulfilling Nations League fixtures against Israel would have been more than 10 million euro, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has said.
The FAI had been criticised for not setting out exactly what the repercussions for not playing Israel would be, but the association said these were not known because sanctions were chosen by a separate body to Uefa.
FAI chief executive David Courell told the Oireachtas Sport Committee on Wednesday that there were three tiers of sanctions; definitive, likely and possible.
“Immediately, we’d have all those sporting consequences of the points, the dropping down to Nation League C increased likelihood, potential of removal from the tournament,” he said.
“Then there’s financial consequences which take the form of ticketing and hospitality loss, broadcast revenue, the participation fee for featuring in the tournament.
“It’s 5.5 million (euro) for an immediate impact, with a further 4.8 million (euro), of likely impact if we were to drop down into Nations League C and a corresponding impact.
“Then there is a possible impact, a third tier, which we didn’t put a number on, which goes above and beyond that 10.3 million (euro) that I’ve just quantified there, which would be multiples of that.”
People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger said on Tuesday that the board and chief executive of the FAI should resign over its “shambolic, arrogant, and incompetent” dealing with the fixtures.
“Do you agree that the FAI handling was shambolic, arrogant, and incompetent, and the CEO and the board should resign for their handling of it,” she asked Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil.
“The team was sent into a cauldron of racial abuse, monkey chants for one of the players, an IDF chant.
“A video circulated of Yoseph Haddad, who was actually brought into the Oireachtas by Minister (Jennifer Carroll) MacNeill, apparently stating that ‘we (Israel) may lose the football, but the IDF always wins’.
“We all agree the players shouldn’t have been in that position, that’s unanimous. You and the FAI put them in that position.”
Earlier, Sport Minister Patrick O’Donovan said the FAI deserved sympathy over its handling of the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League fixtures against Israel.
Mr O’Donovan said the opposition was “speaking out of both sides of its mouth”, adding that he felt sorry for the FAI.
“They have had to walk an excruciatingly difficult line in the last couple of months, and it’s very easy for politicians to take potshots at them,” the Fine Gael TD said.
Speaking at the launch of a new Arts Capital Investment Fund, in the Mermaid centre in Bray, Co Wicklow, he said: “But with regard to the issue that the FAI have had to contend with, they attempted to get the rules changed by Uefa. That was voted down and the alternative is that they don’t play and they’re kicked out, and that there are severe penalties.”
The Republic of Ireland were 3-0 winners over Israel at the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen, Hungary, on Sunday, in the first of the two highly contentious games between the sides.
They are to play again this Sunday in the TSC Arena in Backa Topola, Serbia.
The game, which was due to be a home fixture for the Republic of Ireland, was moved to a neutral venue and behind closed doors by the FAI, over concerns of “operational challenges”.