Full extent of FAI problems revealed

The extent of the problems, identified by the Genesis report, at the FAI's headquarters in Merrion Square became obvious yesterday as the full version of the 40-page document was released by the association.

Although Genesis chairman Alistair Gray had hinted in his summary presentation of the company's finding on Tuesday evening at the scale of the difficulties being encountered in the day-to-day running of the organisation, the more detailed document suggests a chaotic working environment in which many of the workers are poorly motivated, supported or supervised and where many have terribly ill-defined roles.

While it is pointed out there is a considerable number of "committed, efficient individuals" the report identifies the reliance on a large number of part-time staff as further complicating an already difficult organisational structure.

"Morale," it is pointed out, "is not high as illustrated by the number of negative comments made to us by staff about their colleagues' time-keeping and performance.

"Many staff in key functions," the report continues, "complained of being over-stretched - surely a sign of an organisation growing in size and complexity."

In fact the number of people employed by the FAI has roughly trebled in four years but no department has been allocated the responsibility of managing personnel or the recruitment process and many of the association's employees, particularly in the areas associated with the handling of the senior national team, have no job descriptions of any sort.

At management level, the report points out, a coherent system for maximising productivity of the staff was almost completely absent. Meetings were not planned, minuted or properly followed up on. There was, it added, a "lack of goal or objectives" at almost all levels of the operation.

In terms of the World Cup it is pointed out that areas in which difficulties had been previously experienced, such as ticketing, were handled much more effectively this time. But the level of support provided by the organisation to the press officer and team management while in Saipan, Japan and Korea was "totally inadequate" for an event on the scale of a World Cup. This was particularly evident during the ill-fated first phase of the trip when only one administrator was among the travelling party.

On balance, it concludes, although Mick McCarthy receives considerable praise from both his own squad and senior English club managers asked to assess his performance, the association he worked for was "structured to fail". Matters were not helped either by the fact no serious attempt was made to debrief anybody after they returned from the finals so that lessons might be learned for the future. This is, it is pointed out, totally out of step with what would be common practice at other sports organisations or football associations in other jurisdictions.

In terms of the way the team was handled there is, meanwhile, at least some implied criticism of the former manager's methods, with the authors comments that future team managers may wish to consider the importance of "maintaining" the social aspects "which contribute to the 'unique' spirit within the squad) without the extended drinking sessions".