TWO LOSERS PART COMPANY

I see that Eircom are to discontinue their sponsorship deal with the League of Ireland/ (LOI) and the Football Association of Ireland (FAI). They have a relationship, which spans nearly a decade, and now finally the penny has dropped with Eircom that the money was being washed down the plughole.

If ever two organizations (an unwise term given that neither could score in a brothel) deserved each other, then these two did.

Eircom is one of the most inefficient of the ex-semi-state companies that could be found. If you had the equivalent of an efficiency Geiger-counter and scanned all the companies in Ireland the beeping would be at a peak when tested against Eircom.

For years, it was known as Telecom Eircom, a public-body monolith that was as lazy and slow moving as a rhinoceros mating in the mud.

Then the government of the day decided to privatize it and sell the shares to an unsuspecting Irish public. Mary O’Rourke, then Minister of Telecommunications and Various Other Things, urged the public to buy shares in this great new venture where everybody would become rich. She even convinced the banks to lend money to those who had none to buy the shares, using the shares as collateral. Which of course the greedy banks gladly did, smelling the scent of a killing.

In hindsight, O’Rourke was ahead of her time – in effect, she introduced what is now known as sub-prime lending.

Of course, everybody took a bath with the shares and the Geiger-counter beep merely increased in intensity as Eircom lurched forward in private ownership, dragged down by the millstone of the unions.

In its distracted state, the LOI managed to convince it to sponsor their league championship. Millions poured in with little return. If Eircom was useless at making money, the LOI/FAI was even better at losing it.

In the last decade, the combined entities have become farcical. There had been more internal strife and wars in soccer administration in Ireland than there has been in the entire continent of Africa for the last century. They had to start buying red carpets in Merrion Square so that the blood wouldn’t show after every meeting. Des Kelly had made a fortune supplying replacement green carpets until that fateful decision!

It should be called the SOI – the Scandal Association of Ireland.

Directors embezzling funds, tickets being sold by officials on the black market, senior clubs not paying taxes due on inflated player wages, all the FAI reserves being depleted by planning and consultancy fees for the aborted Eircom Stadium. Add the ego trips of Chief Executive, John Delany, the latest being the boast that the FAI could write the cheque for €74 million in the morning for their contribution to the new Lansdowne Road Stadium they will share with the IRFU. He couldn’t write a cheque for the €74 he spends on his lunch everyday!

It will be interesting in these troubled times to see who will have the balls or the foolishness to sponsor a game that is about exciting as watching the polar ice cap melting. A funeral undertaker might be a suitable possibility.

Truth is that the country would be better served if both the FAI and Eircom became extinct tomorrow, and headed for the dinosaur’s graveyard.