GEORGE THE GREEK AND JOE

There have been a number of dodgy dealings in Football, but few will beat the effort that "Treasurer" Joe Delaney was involved in when he decided to give £296,000 of Football Association of Ireland's money to a man called "George the Greek", in order to acquire tickets for the 1994 World Cup. The agent, of course, turned out to be a "tout" and the FAI only managed to get 314 tickets, leaving the Association with a hole in their accounts of £214,000. Delaney made up the "shortfall" himself and of course did the gentlemanly thing by resigning from his post. He took with him the FAI President, Louis Kilcoyne on March 8 1996 at an Extraordinary General Meeting; "I took what I considered a calculated risk", admitted Delaney by way of an apology. He was at least spared the indignity of having pastries thrown at him, as he made his valedictory (farewell) speech!!

As treasurer, he not only looked after the FAI’s finances, but their match tickets. For the 1994 World Cup tie against Italy in New Jersey, the aim was to get as many tickets as possible for Irish fans.

So well did he do his job that the Italian players, on emerging from the tunnel into the stadium, asked: “Where are the Italians?” They were bewildered by the sea of Ireland banners around the ground. Officially, the Irish were entitled to 8,000 of the 71,000 seats, but somehow Delaney — and his accomplice, FAI president Louis Kilcoyne — had secured well over 30,000.

The sting was in the tail for Delaney and Kilcoyne as it emerged later, during the FAI crisis in 1996 — dubbed Merriongate — that deals had been done with touts to secure those seats. The cost to the association was €250,000, and this was one of the revelations that led to the resignations of the president and treasurer on the infamous Night of the Long Knives in the Westbury Hotel. Delaney always denied any wrongdoing and paid €210,000 of his own money to cover losses from ticket sales offloaded to the touts.

There were many FAI people who believed Delaney acted in good faith, including his great friend, the late Dr Tony O’Neill, who tried to broker a deal to save him and Kilcoyne, but the AUL camp, who led the opposition, were not for turning. That bitterness harvested a legacy that ultimately did more damage to the FAI, when Delaney’s son John, motivated by his desire to avenge his father, climbed up the ranks, challenging some of his father’s opponents along the way, and ultimately left the association in tatters.