It’s an old trick in sport that when you’ve had success with one particular move or tactic, you’ll go back to it again.
It was deep into the 2 hours and 40 minutes of the FAI hearing in front of the Oireachtas Committee on Sport yesterday before the question was asked of FAI President, Paul Cooke.
“Do you have 100 per cent confidence in the FAI Board and the Executive Leadership?” The last time it was asked in this setting, the FAI CEO was Jonathan Hill. Cooke’s answer was equivocal, and from that point, it looked like he would not be long in Dublin. So it proved, and he was succeeded by David Courell.
This time, though, it was positive, “Yes, 100 per cent,” and when the same question was straight away lobbed to Sport Ireland CEO Dr Una May, the answer was the same.
The massed ranks of the football media in the gallery effectively stood themselves down from the hunt.
Even the politicians, sensing that this was not going to be making the top story on the RTÉ News at Six, seemed a little jaded.
You’ll be able to read verbatim reports on who took up their allocation of time with 80% question and 20% reply, of who insisted that there was no smoke without fire and were annoyed by the temerity of a publicly funded body to take legal advice that they should steer clear of talking about individual cases.
I’ve written before about the flawed nature of the format of these committee hearings, where time is always at a premium, but often spent more on the question than the answer.
Here, I want to touch on the broader sense of how yesterday played out.
In advance, the FAI team first deferred and then stated that they could not appear before the committee because they did not feel that the questioning would remain strictly on the process and not on the specific cases of safeguarding shortfalls.
I would suggest that they were initially poorly advised, possibly prioritising overt legal caution over perception.
However, at the 11th hour, the decision was reversed, and the seats were filled.
This is the house that we elected to look after the interests of society. They are, in fact, we, and answering to perceived shortfalls in such a sensitive area is important.
All of politics, and much of life is about trying to do the right thing, as often as is possible, and owning up when things have not come up to scratch.
Should we trust the FAI leadership in this important area, I for one say yes. They are good people, not some pantomime villains, and the most important people are those who might have been wronged in the past; that they should be recognised and compensated; and those who are entrusted to the care of the sport.
CEO David Courell was asked how the 100,000 volunteers in the sport would feel about the FAI name being tainted once more. He answered that he was one of those volunteers and didn’t have to say that the biggest concerns among the vast majority of volunteers across all sport is to do with pitches and dressing rooms, balls and bibs, fixtures and somehow finding the time to get it all done.
Those of us who volunteer have to be vetted and we have to do the Safeguarding course. That has gotten darker down the years, it has to be refreshed every three years, and it is so in making the case that we all have a responsibility to those around us .
That’s more important than a discussion around a board room, unless that discussion is seeking to get around the practice and regulation, which it is clearly not.
Right at the end Chair of the committee Alan Kelly reached for his holster and said that he had just received an email from someone in his office who had also just received a message from someone with concerns over safeguarding that they were not at all satisfied with the answers being given. Was it a smoking gun, well no.
Will it form part of what will now be voluminous correspondence between the FAI, the Committee, Sport Ireland and who knows how many more, yes it will.
And you know, sometimes the best things come not from the bandstand where the crowd is watching, where the keyboards are divining fact from fancy, and where the blood is up.
They come from asking people to prove they are doing the right thing, accepting it when this happens and moving to ensure it stays as good as it can be.
We love scandal, and gossip, and accusations and the idea that suits are always out to get us.
But sometimes that is best left to the writers room of a Netflix drama, and sometimes we need to accept that real life is about people trying to do their best.
We were left with a touch of despair from the committee members that this ‘simply was not good enough’ and that there would be further calls on those present to sit before the Committee and defend their position.
Maybe there will, or maybe it will all be resolved in a quieter fashion, through competent ownership of any problems that do exist and clear guidance on how the future will be safe for all children, players, coaches and volunteers to keep doing what they do for a love of sport.
That would be the real winning of this.
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