MEDIA tycoon Denis O’Brien has gone public with his admiration for John Delaney, the Football Association of Ireland chief executive, in an online documentary, writes Mark Tighe.
In the programme — to be shown on independent.ie, owned by Independent News & Media (INM) — O’Brien is quoted: “John Delaney could run anything. John Delaney could run Uefa, easily. He could run Fifa as far as I’m concerned — certainly better than Sepp Blatter, and more honestly.”
Blatter, the Fifa president, declined to respond to the comments about his honesty.
O’Brien was interviewed for the documentary by Barry Egan, the showbusiness correspondent of the Sunday Independent, owned by INM, of which O’Brien is the largest shareholder at 29.9%. The documentary is called John the Baptist, a title described by one commentator on social media as “crass”, considering the “two beheading stories in the news this week”.
Eamon Dunphy and Martin O’Neill, the Ireland manager, are also interviewed by Egan. It recently emerged that O’Brien is paying 70% of the combined €1.3m salary of O’Neill and Roy Keane, his assistant manager.
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Delaney is on a salary of €360,000 with the FAI — more than the total €315,000 prize fund for all League of Ireland clubs in the Premier and First divisions. He has said in the past that he turned down bigger offers from unidentified parties to stay with the association. The FAI is €50m in debt and recently had to cut its premium ticket prices by 85%.
In March the Irish Independent newspaper announced it and the FAI had become “official partners”.
Egan has been working on his documentary about the “charismatic” Delaney for the past six months.