FAI accounts show liabilities of €55m and reveal details of compensation paid to Roy Keane and Martin O'Neill

ROY Keane received an undisclosed portion of a €1.9 million compensation package paid to Martin O’Neill’s management team by the FAI when their contracts were terminated early.

The football association has revealed, following the publication of its 2018 accounts, that it has current net liabilities of €55 million and may not be able to continue as a going concern.

It has also emerged that €462,000 was paid to former CEO John Delaney, including a pension payment, as a severance settlement when he left the organisation.

Included in staff costs for 2018 is €1,903,277 relating to early termination of the contracts of the senior management team.

Martin O’Neill left the Republic of Ireland managerial job in November 2018. His management team including Keane, Seamus McDonagh and Steve Guppy, also left at the same time.

A breakdown of how the money was paid out was not revealed in the accounts.

The financial state of the country’s governing football association will likely have implications in Cork.

It has led to doubts over a €10m Munster soccer centre of excellence in Glanmire that was “shovel-ready” earlier this year but a freeze imposed on the FAI receiving Government funds means the project is now on ice.

The precarious nature of the FAI’s debt has led to questions on whether capital projects such as this will receive any central Government funding in the near future.

Labour Councillor John Maher has labelled the announcement of FAI accounts and the real possibility of the Glanmire centre of soccer excellence being scrapped as a “betrayal of trust” by those in power to the grassroots.

"There's no two ways about it, this whole fiasco has been a betrayal of trust. For years, coaches, players, and the entire soccer community in Cork, and especially Glanmire, have been waiting for this centre of excellence.

“Now it appears it will be pulled out from under the feet to save the skins of the upper echelons of Irish soccer.

"Soccer in Glanmire and Cork deserve the truth, Mr Maher added."

Cork TD and Sinn Féin spokesperson on sport Jonathan O’Brien said it is a “bleak day” for Irish football.

“The reality is that nobody was expecting good news today but what we have seen is absolutely shocking and worrying for the future of the organisation.

“The auditors were unable [to] determine whether adequate accounting records have been kept and were unable to report if, in their opinion, the disclosure of directors’ remuneration and transactions specified by law were made.

“Ordinary football fans across the country will also be gobsmacked at the severance package of €462,000 paid out to John Delaney.

“This is a bleak day for Irish football and all those fans who spend their hard-earned money to follow clubs and the National side year in, year out.

“If there are to be job losses at the association then it needs to begin with those who are responsible for this mess rather than those who work tirelessly behind the scenes to promote Irish football every day,” Mr O’Brien added.

The FAI is now set to refinance the whole organisation and remortgage its debt on the Aviva stadium.