THE REVENUE COMMISSION have yet to accept a voluntary payment of almost €3.5 million made by the Football Association of Ireland. 

Following the revelations of the true state of the Association’s finances after the departure of former Chief Executive John Delaney, the FAI were subject to an audit by the Revenue Commissioners in 2019 and 2020.

Having consulted external experts, the FAI last year made a voluntary and unprompted payment of €3,481,386 to Revenue. This was based on directors’ informed estimates on monies owed to cover underpaid employment taxes and VAT, along with consequent interest and penalties, across the years 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. 

A note in the Association’s accounts for 2020 states this payment has yet to be accepted by Revenue. 

The beleaguered football body posted a slightly cheerier set of accounts than anticipated yesterday, showing a recorded surplus of €1.6 million. This follows an operating loss of €5.1 million for 2019. 

The FAI lowered costs by €5.7 million in 2020, much of which has been attributed to the pandemic-enforced limit on activity. 

The Association’s net current liabilities (debts that are to be settled within one year) have been greatly reduced from €69.7 million to €13.03 million, thanks largely to the refinancing of a loan from Bank of Ireland, which has been reclassified as a non-current liability. 

Consequently, the 2020 accounts show the FAI’s borrowings have jumped from €42.9m to €62.4m in 2020. This includes an interest free loan of $5 million from Fifa, made available to offset pandemic-enforced losses. 

During the tenure of the previous CEO John Delaney, the FAI had aimed to be debt-free by 2020. 

In spite of the cratering of revenue as a result of Covid, the FAI’s 2020 turnover held, increasingly slightly from €42.6 million to €42.9 million. Included in this turnover figure is €8.2 million of a total of €13.1 million in Covid relief granted by the government. 

Unsurprisingly given games were played almost entirely behind closed doors in 2020, the FAI’s match revenue collapsed from €8.1 million to just €264,000. 

While commercial income remained stable at €15 million, the accounts show a significant increase in grants and State aid. 

The FAI received a total of €19 million in State funding last year, with €14 million of it accounted for in the 2020 accounts. This is comprised of the State’s Covid relief fund and also the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed with government at the beginning of 2020, which doubled the State funding of the football body to €5.8 million. 

€1.2m of State funding was allocated to player development (up from €234,000 in 2019), €1.99m to grassroots football (up from €1.1m in 2019) and, for the first time, the League of Ireland, Women’s National League and Other Competitions were allocated €895,370 of this funding.

Another €1.65 million of this money was classified as paying for ‘Administration and Operations.’ 

The FAI kept up their end of the MOU by passing a raft of governance changes in the last 18 months, including the recent introduction of six independent directors to the board. 

FAI Chaiperson Roy Barrett says the Association “are very much in a better place now than a year ago.”

“Covid-19 presented a real financial challenge to the Association in 2020″, said Barrett.

“Thanks to the ongoing and welcome support from Government and Sport Ireland we were able to manage our finances in a positive way in 2020, across all levels of our game. Together with the support provided to us by Fifa and Uefa and the strict and careful management of our variable costs as we came to terms with the impact of the pandemic, we met this financial challenge head on with our operating costs €5.7m lower in 2020 compared to 2019.

“We are moving to a better place and can look forward to a brighter financial future.”