The FAI announced on Wednesday that it would be inviting staff to take voluntary redundancies as part of a major overhaul in the association’s operations.
In a statement released early on Wednesday morning, the FAI said the restructure would begin in the coming days with the launch of a voluntary redundancy programme, after which a review would take place to assess how many compulsory redundancies would then be required.
The statement said that the move to cut the current workforce of 251 employees was part of a drive to “Align directly with future strategic objectives, accelerate internal culture change & introduce specialist skillsets, and deliver increased financial sustainability.”
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It comes after what has been a turbulent few years for the association.
Controversies have grown from the FAI’s handling of managerial exits and appointments across both senior international teams since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similarly, the highest positions in the FAI have seen regular change, with Marc Canham’s departure from the board the latest turbulence high up in the association.
The most recent issues stemmed from the proposed “pathways” revamp of grassroots football country, which has divided clubs and struggled to pass a recent vote.
Against the backdrop of all of this, the men’s team has struggled for anything approaching consistent form, while the women’s team failed to build on their qualification for the 2023 World Cup and missed out on Euro 2025.
On Wednesday night, Richie Sadlier ripped into the optics of the FAI’s redundancies programme, and pondered how Irish football could possibly develop against the backdrop of such turbulence within the association.
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Richie Sadlier rant sums up worrying trajectory of Irish football and FAI
5 April 2017; A general view of the Football Association of Ireland Offices at the FAI National Training Centre in Abbotstown, Dublin. Photo by Matt Browne/Sportsfile
Richie Sadlier was part of RTÉ’s punditry team on Wednesday night as Rangers sought to fight back in their Champions League playoff second leg against Club Brugge (spoiler: they most certainly did not).
Despite an important Champions League tie on the horizon, much of the pre-match discussion focused on the FAI’s statement released on Wednesday morning.
Sadlier did not hold back, explaining to host Peter Collins why he was immensely concerned by the optics of the FAI’s statement and the gradual malaise in the association over the past few years.
The RTÉ pundit said that he had spoken to staff in the FAI after the statement’s release, with many members hurt by the language used.
“It must be a pretty demoralising day for the staff in particular,” Richie Sadlier said.
“I spoke to some of the staff today, there’s a lot of really strong feelings about the fact that there’s no clarity on how many redundancies are being sought, no insight as to what the criteria is that’s being used. There’s no vision at all being presented to the staff as to what the association will look like from next year onwards.
They’re disgusted at the phrase that the organisation ‘lacks the framework and the skillset to deliver the plans.’
It’s difficult for the staff but, for those of us who’ve been watching the FAI for years and how they’ve been managing football in this country…
The statement started very positively! It said, ‘This is a transformation programme to modernise how football is developed and delivered,’ which is a hell of a way to open up a statement that is saying, ‘We’re going to let a lot of people go, but we’re not going to give any more details.’
Sadlier went on to explain his huge worries about both senior national teams, saying that the announcement of redundancies only further cemented the shaky morale of an association that has struggled to stay out of trouble in recent years. Ultimately, he summed up the aimless direction in which Irish football appears to be travelling.
You could run through the whole statement and there’s no information in it. There’s lot of corporate speak and buzzwords, and a lot of thought has gone into how it’s worded.
But it’s essentially a statement saying that the staff we have got aren’t good enough to deliver what our plans are, without saying, ‘Here’s what our plans are, here’s what the restructuring is going to look like, here’s the vision, stay with us, stay behind us, because this is where we’re taking you.’
There is no funding, no budget for women’s and girls’ football. There is no funding, no budget for academy football in this country.
We’ve been urging the thing to improve. Every time we talk about the FAI, it’s negative.
Show me the plan! You’re asking me to assess a plan without giving me any detail about who wrote it, what’s involved, what’s it going to cost, how’s it going to be funded?
The people on the board […] the people who have mismanaged the finances and got the FAI into a situation where the statement today is where we’re at…those people have been behind the wheel, not the people in grassroots football that are going to lose their job. Are they included in the review here? Could they be asked to come forward and accept redundancy?
I don’t think ‘Rushing to judgement’ is a phrase that belongs anywhere near a conversation about criticism of the FAI.
There’s been so many issues for so many years, so many statements. We’ve sometimes used the phrase ‘the new FAI’ – remember? – we’ve not bought into that for a while. Here we are today.
Do you remember the women went to the World Cup a couple of years ago? We all sat here in the studio and said, ‘We’re going to build on this,’ without anyone actually sitting there and saying, ‘There’s no money, there’s no guidance, there’s no leadership. Why do we think we’ll be back here again?’
We’re going to be back here for the Ireland men’s team shortly and we’ll have a discussion on whether we’ll get to the World Cup. How we talk about ourselves, sometimes, is completely at odds with the reality of where Irish football is…the funding, the facilities, in comparison to other countries.
A brutal outlook, but hard to argue with.
Wednesday will have understandably been a deeply concerning day for many staff within the FAI, who will be hoping for urgent clarification on whether their jobs will be safe.
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