Genesis reforms could cost FAI €1.7m

The FAI faces the prospect of having to stump up around 10 per cent of its annual turnover if it is to fully implement the recommendations of the Genesis report, the contents of which were made public by the organisation on Tuesday evening.

Although the report's main author, Genesis chairman Alistair Gray, said yesterday it had not been part of his brief to provide a detailed costing of the report's proposals, he estimated the establishment of a "performance plan" for the association's elite teams could cost up to €900,000 a year, in addition to which it was anticipated the recruitment of five senior executives could add €400,000 to the annual Merrion Square wage bill.

Allowing the senior team to travel to games without media or supporters on the plane could add up to another €400,000, depending on the number of away games and the locations involved in any given year. The potential expenditure involved could therefore run to around €1.7 million for an organisation that, in the financial year to April (an exceptionally good one because of the eight senior internationals played at Lansdowne Road), turned over some €18.8 million.

"Obviously this is an area on which a lot more detailed work will have to be done," said Gray, "and there should be the potential to generate additional revenues, too, but it is hard to avoid the fact that if you want to improve something then generally it tends to involve some additional expenditure."

Gray said the €900,000 figure for the performance plan was the maximum that would be involved "and you can actually achieve quite a lot with these things for a couple of hundred thousand".

He added it was likely that a portion of the spend could be recouped, either in grants or sponsorship. He cited the example of Scottish Golf which received £150,000 from Nike when it embarked on a similar development process.

FAI treasurer John Delaney again insisted the report would be fully implemented and the required resources would be made available. "It's things like this that we can use the Sky money for because it has to be done; implementing the recommendations contained in this report is central to moving the FAI forward as an organisation," he said.

The association's officers will meet tomorrow with a view to starting the process of drawing up a plan for the implementation of the Genesis recommendations, which will be brought to the board of management on November 29th. But it seems likely the programme of implementation of the various proposals may not be decided upon until after the new chief executive is in place early in the New Year.

Proposals on issues like the senior team's travel arrangements are likely, in the end, either to be watered down or even ignored as the practice of filling planes with outsiders, usually the media, in order to keep costs down is standard amongst international associations as well as among leading British clubs.

There was some disappointment amongst the association's staff within Merrion Square at the tone of the report and the scale of the change it appears to envisage, but Delaney's assurance at Tuesday's press conference that nobody would lose their job was echoed yesterday by other senior officials within the organisation.

It is difficult, however, to see how the new senior positions could be filled without displacing a number of administrators, unless those already in place were simply promoted. But there appears to be a general feeling that introducing new blood would have its advantages, particularly in the case of the chief executive's job.

That is virtually certain to go to somebody from outside the game and, as is the case with the filling of the national team manager's post, the association's officers are likely to use outside consultants.

"None of this should be viewed in too negative a way," said Gray, who looks set to have an ongoing advisory role in the reorganisation process. "A new structure needs to be agreed, after which it can be decided what jobs need to be filled. In other organisations the process has involved telling the people already there that these are the jobs available now and you can apply for them or perhaps view this as an opportunity to take a new direction and leave.

"That's not at all the way things have to work in the FAI, that's up to them to decide, but even if it is, the number of people you end up with could easily be larger than the number you started with."

If there is to be any substantial upheaval it is likely to be tied into the relocation of the organisation's headquarters away from Merrion Square. The association announced at its a.g.m. during the summer that it intended to move and UEFA has undertaken to provide in excess of €1.5 million to assist with the costs involved.

The release of the Genesis report's full text, meanwhile, was delayed yesterday after it was decided to have the document assessed for any potential libel problems.

"This is nothing more than prudence on the part of the association," said a spokesman. "We don't think that there is anything here for us to worry about but the reality is that while it is a report written by Alistair Gray, it is the FAI that would be distributing it and given that a number of individuals are named and their actions referred to, it is only common sense to have it looked over before we put it out into the public domain."