How John Delaney Ruined Irish Football 

Video title: John Delaney, Irish football First 2 minutes: Saipan Ah yes, another classic HITC Sevens video

Thank you so much Alfie for making this video, its not a story heard outside Ireland, but its one that needs to be told, what Delaney has done to the FAI is horrible and created a deep culture of failure, the domestic scene is way below standard and the national team is in a horrible state only being fixed by a few young stars, whats hapened to my country on the world stage is embarrasing and I can inly hope the new people fix it, although I dont have much hoep

John Delaney should be in prison. Instead he gets a golden hand shake. Nice pension from ruining Irish football. Makes me sick .

It’s insane to think that we were once the 6th best football nation in the world considering how shocking we are now 😭

Greetings and sending love to our Irish brothers 🇮🇪 from Mexico 🇲🇽

Being Irish and a football fan is not a fun time. Even with a 40 minute video, you have barely scratched the surface of how absolutely horrible John Delaney is and what he has done to Irish football. The League of Ireland community had been saying how bad he was for years prior but his media friends covered for him. Even when non-LOI fans began critiscising him in the mid 2010s, he made sure he had powerful allies. Ultimately, everyone and their dog knew there was dodgy stuff going on and it was only a matter of time before he got found out. Thankfully since his departure, it has slowly been getting a bit more positive. Stephen Kenny, after almost leading Dundalk into the Champions League groupstages, is now the National Team manager and is making us more progressive in our play and bringing through new young players. The LOI is slowly earning more acknowledgment in Ireland and hopefully will see the facilites improve to further on its growth.

If you are not Irish and are watching this, I would recommend the book mentioned in the video: “Champagne Football”. It is almost unbelievable some of the events and expenses that took place and sweetly describes Delaney’s downfall and the utter shitshow that he has caused.

As an Irishman, John Delaney has made football in my country absolute hell.

Alfie just as an FYI John Delaney visited my soccer club on his grass roots tour before being finally ousted. The donation he made to the club to help put funds into youth development was valued at 10,000 euros. You might be wondering why I said 'valued' there as it wasn't money he was offering to us for badly needed facilities from the FAI but tickets to the FAI ball that year that we could raffle off to raise funds. But when interviewed on local radio that day he stated He had given us 10,000 to use.......He was literally the worst and eveyone was blinded by his promises

Some other things I, as an Irish football fan, would like to also add to this important video: - The loss to Luxembourg was almost inevitable in that we were due an embarrassing defeat to fully come to terms with what has happened to Irish football. Thankfully since then, the national team has begun looking better. - The LOI despite the Delaney treating it with as much contempt as he could, has managed to survive. I do believe if it wasnt for FIFA+UEFA rules stating that all associations much have a national league system, he would have binned it off at the first chance. - The 2010’s saw the first occasion of Irish clubs qualifying for UEFA groupstages (which has happened a total of 3 times) in spite of the LOI recieving f- all help/support from the FAI. - In 2017, the Irish Women’s Senior team proteseted and went on strike due to poor travelling arrangments, having to change in airports and not being allowed to keep their gear after International duty. - Delaney created this celebrity personality for himself and tried to build connections to save himself. The celebrity personallity meant non-Football fans took attention to him and build up his profile, while the grassroots money was purely to have people on his side when shit hit the fan (ie he looked after some so they would look after him. - What worked in John Delaney’s favour after Saipan was that the FAI was an ametaur organisation and he said he was the one to modernise it. - I also want to emphasis the fact that the FAI was €70m in debt and was going to be in administartion. For a national association that is disgraceful, while the FAI under Delaney had been publishing accounts that claimed the FAI was reporting slight net positives annually.

As an Irishman, I've never expected or even wanted an amazing national team and league. All I want is something that the country can feel like we can actually get behind. Having a league on the same level as say the Swiss or Belgian leagues would be a dream come true. Just having a league that can actually contribute to our players developments rather than pinning our hopes on England.

Vid suggestion: since AFCON is well underway, I think now would be a really great time to tell the story of Zambia winning the 2012 AFCON tournament. It’s a truly emotional n inspiring story that not near enough people know about. Cheers Sevens

Very impressed on this video Alfie. There's so much more to the Delaney era which wasn't mentioned too. While he was getting drunk with fans at Euro 2012, League of Ireland club Monaghan Utd went bust. He was also the main man behind the ill-fated 2011 Carling Nations Cup. His huge salary led to the Irish futsal team scrapped and indoor arena abandoned. An entire generation of developing young players was sacrificed to fill one mans pockets.

We needed Michael (The Irish Guy) to co-narrate this one

Unfortunately, there are a lot of stories like this where someone who talks a good game gets into a position of authority, and instead of doing their job, they seek to enrich themselves. This is just one more example of that.

This channel is fantastic - more for the broadsheet reading, discerning football fan. The social and historical context he provides makes these videos extremely interesting. He structures the narrative very well - his dry sense of humour also resonates well with me. Smart kid, whoever produces these videos.

Delaney is the embodiment of what Celtic Tiger Ireland was.

A video on how Neil Doncaster is underselling and ruining the Scottish football league would be great. He also is on a ridiculous wage of around £388k and got the spfl (4 leagues) a smaller sponsorship deal to sponsor the whole league system than Tottenham got for a shirt patch. Our tv deal compared to our viewership is also terrible

Was waiting for a video on John Delaney for years. He has almost single handedly crippled Irish football completely. The lack of funding to our own domestic league and local youth leagues is disgraceful as many kids choose to play GAA or Rugby instead.

The Ghana Men's National Football Team went from competing with big teams in the 2010 FIFA World Cup to getting knocked out of 2021 African Cup of Nations by debutants Comoros. Would be nice to see Alfie do a video on what led to their downfall.

Vid suggestion: Bolton's descent down to League 2 from playing in Europe. And in particular the Ken Anderson era

As an Irish man I thank you for this. Easily one of the most hated men in Ireland.

Do one video about the AIFF and FSDL also here in India. The last few years have been up and down for Indian football. After reaching the 96th rank in 2019, we as viewers thought things would change. But it was totally the opposite. Right now the the main league is having huge problems with the management, the 2nd division is postponed forever. No women's league was conducted despite the fact that the Indian women's team is playing the Asia Cup at the moment, and all the top division teams are going thru huge losses.

A massive irony of the AVIVA Stadium was that if you lived in any of the houses in the surrounding area, you could not get House Insurance from AVIVA because they classified it as a floodplain.

Will you make a video on the the large investigation into Belgium football, that has recently lead to the indictment of 57 high ranking footballing officials?

It's actually crazy how every club in the league of Ireland hasn't gone bust!! Those clubs CEOs and owners could teach the FAI a thing or two about running within your budget

I seriously can't get enough of these doc videos, I watch/listen to them every single night when I go to bed

This is good insight into football governance 👌🏾 If you want a good laugh and a tricky puzzle, though, try the South African Football Association. From the 2010 World Cup, to the perpetual failure of qualifying for International tournaments. Give it a try Alfie, I promise you won’t regret it!

The 100k loan that was his undoing, was due to Dundalk FC looking to draw down UEFA prizemoney from the EUROPA League group stage participation, paid to national associations by UEFA to be distributed to clubs. As the FAI and John Delaney had dipped in to this fund they found themselves a bit short changed when Dundalk FC came calling for the few millions Euro and Delaney's house of cards came crashing down. It should also be noted that Delaney sat on the board of UEFA and was also in receipt of a UEFA salary. A prequel video on missing money from when John Delaney's father was was involved in the FAI for added context of corruption and greed, the apple didnt fall far from the tree!!

Great video. Any possibility of covering New Zealand's run qualifiying and remaining unbeaten at the 2010 world cup?

Beautiful and enlightening story--you really don't hear much about football in the ROI, and after watching this video, it's not very hard to see why. Also, this has gotta be day 30 (non-consecutive, just pretty much every time I watch a video of yours) of me asking for that sub-Saharan Africa-based Best XI

Great video Alfie. Been an Irish football fan and league of Ireland fan. These types of videos need to be made. I would love to see Irish football improve. Another scandal was with the Irish woman's football team. They are currently doing better than the mens team the last few years. but the fai would not give them funding for kits, tracksuits and travel. They had to buy there own. I really enjoyed this one keep them coming.

I'm going to love the information in this video. Thank you Alfie

Suggested this months ago and buzzing that Alfie made it. A truly bizzare story that few outside of ireland would be aware of. "Champagne football" by Mark Tighe is a great book to read if anyone is interested in reading about his many, many scandals

Brilliant documentary Alfie! Thanks for doing it! You are helping tell the world how bad he was. In the future you should look at the Irish national team and the reasons for the decline and the potential hope that we have with our young players coming through.

I didn't know the problems with Irish football were this bad... What hit me the most about this documentary is that grassroots football has had to face the worst consequences of it: when the chief executive of your national football federation basically drains the youth national teams of resources to finance his own birthday party, I couldn't really blame kids for growing disillusioned with football, despite how painful would be for them to give up on their dreams. I know I'm not saving words this time, but seeing kids getting outraged like that just frustrates me (and I'm only in my 20s, by the way 😅). As I discovered when I did a school project some years ago, Ireland is an incredibly fascinating country, and their national team has a very respectable history: I really hope they can regain at least some of their potential and their prestige with time, because they definitely deserve it. The same goes for the Irish football league, too! A system that is still producing guys capable of leaving a mark at Inter (Kevin Zefi), Celtic (Scales, Kenny, Connell, Lawal, Vata) or even Premier League/EFL clubs (Bazunu) looks far from being "a problematic child" in my eyes.

Another interesting topic of discuss. Thank you for what you do, please it would be interesting to do one concerning the NFF (Nigeria Football Federation)

Here's a video idea that I would like to see: The rise of soccer-specific stadiums in North America.

I’ve been begging for this for AGES. Thanks Alfie!

Thank you for making this video on this absolute piece of garbage. As an Irish man myself it makes it boils my blood to see what he's done to Irish football and the FAI.

Point of order: A *huge* percentage of Saipan's civilian population was killed by the Japanese Army either through impressment into suicide attacks, preventing their surrender to the Americans, or forcing mass "suicides" at gunpoint. (Source: I'm actually a historian of Pacific War land conflicts.) Not a criticism, but a very important addendum when mentioning that the civilian population died at the hands of the Americans. Love the content. Do an audio version of your book.

As someone who has first-hand been in the Irish football development teams, it’s absolutely ridiculous how rubbish coaches, facilities and the culture is absolutely terrible. Really hope we up our standards in the next few years.

Would love to see you do a video on the sfa and the ineptitude and corruption that has ruined scottish football

I am a proud Irishman and I can tell you that this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to organisations in this country. The so called revelations about Delaney were not revelatory at all, his arsery was known for a long time but ignored by his powerful 'friends'. I have Facebook posts going back 10 years complaining about the state of the finances, about grassroots and the horrible state of Irish League stadiums. I was not the only one talking about this, any half decent fan knew and had an opinion about it. Fans give life to football and we put the administrators and players in these lavish lifestyles. We deserve a better return for our investment. We need a committee on corruption in football, to be chaired by people who will not receive payment for their work. We need to ensure that sport is sporting, and we need to restore or establish confidence in the running of the industry behind football.

Thanks Alfie, great video. 👍

Good job again. How I wish you could make a video about the federation in my country....

Excellent work sir. And a big hug to all my fellow paisanos.

Whenever there’s an appropriate time for another Hull City video, make it about a deep insight into the life of our new owner Acun Ilicali from his tragic early years to his monumental success as a businessman.

As an Australian. When I see "Irish Football", the first thing I think about is Irish Football = Gaelic Football

The guy put Irish football back at least a generation and that's unforgivable

Brilliant coverage. if you’ve got the time, I’d suggest reading ‘Champagne Football’ by Mark Tighe.

Thank you Alfie ! Been asking for this for like a year and a half!!!! AFTER watching: This was more informative than a RTE documentary about the same topic.

What has happened to Huesca? As for what is rotten in Aragon, the team that was closest to escaping relegation in La Liga is mired in 12th in the Segunda Division is now closer to relegation from just promoted Amorebieta (9 points) than to Valladolid and Eibar (19th and 20th in La Liga last season are 12 points ahead in a battle for 2nd with Valladolid leading on goal differential). Part of the issue comes from Segunda Division salary maximums which forced Alvaro Fernandez to be loaned out to Brentford. The Eibar roster is where it gets particularly fascinating as they finished 20th and pretty much had most of the roster either released, sold, or mutually terminated.

Ooo, I know nothing about Irish football (even though my family is from Ulster) so gonna enjoy this. Thanks Alfie :)

Wow another great video! Thank you

Ireland is one of my favourite respective countries and footballing nations and also,I like their respective clubs daily and ever!!!I am extremely so sad with their national team's decline through an irresponsible owner who only wanted to earn more money for himself than to develop the facilities of the team through mainly the recruitment of some of the respective players who at times would not be selected to represent the national team even though,they would play well with their respective clubs,good friends!!!For sure,good friend Irish guy would agree to what good friend Alfie Potts Hammer enacted in this amazing documentary of his national team and massive changes are needed to develop the national team through the present owner and coach to bring back their glory days and maybe,in future,win a major tournament,good friends!!!

Cheers, Alfie. Great presentation

This was absolutely an AWESOMELY entertaining investigation Alfie...WELL DONE! MORE LIKE THIS!! 👍🏻👏🖖✊

Saw this vid and instantly liked it. Was waiting for this!

It was also revealed through leaks to the press that Delaney had an FAI credit card which he used for personal expenses, including the rent on his girlfriend's house, overnight stays in 5 star hotels in Dubai and dry-cleaning bills for designer suits. This was at a time when the FAI was already in 25 million Euros of debt.

Aviva Stadium is really more of a Rugby stadium. The IRFU is the way better governing body, although we still haven't reached the Semi Finals of World cups, for that we are forever cursed.

The nightmares are coming back after watching this, but great video as always.

Phew 40 minutes Keep up the good work man

Best German players in the premier league of all time. (Day 264) I will not give up until the video is made or Alfie himself tells me to stop. Everyone else telling me that will be ignored. If you don't believe my number, just go back to the previous videos. I'm at the bottom most of the time, but I'm there.

Thanks for covering this

Delaney salary: €400,000 Prize money for winning the League of Ireland Premier Division: €230,000

It’s still going on. Robbie Keane gets €250,000 a year for doing nothing.

would love you to have a look at the situation at Birmingham City alfie mate. genuinely mind boggling to see how badly the club is being run, and the deeper you delve the worse it gets

Amazing story and a great video.

I like the video before I watch the video, because I know it will be interesting and informative.

With a squad featuring Shay Given, Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Steve Finnan, Niall Quinn among others in 2002 and considering they lost on pens to Spain who played South Korea in the quarters, you can only imagine how deep they would've gone with Roy Keane at the helm.

Great content as always

@35:13 That tiny squished little stand at one end of the Aviva stadium is freakin' weird considering the size of the rest...like they ran out of concrete or something...

AVIVA stadium didn't open until 2010 not 2007 thats when the old stadium was demolished.They played in the GAA stadium croke park while AVIVA was being built.Fans were complaining about the lack of atmosphere compared to landsdowne but many wanted to stay in croke park permanently

Love this! Watching this Is like reading a wiki one new piece of information and you click on that page and read and so on

Great video Alfie!

Not an Irishman, unless you consider my consumption of ale 🍺 ! But been a Cork city fan for roughly 20 years since seeing a game while travelling Europe in my younger years! This vid is spot on! Regardless of the BS he caused within the squad, his lack of good business dealings are well known as is his financial running of the FAI. If you've looked at the financials behind his dealings you've gotta ask! Did he ever pay attention during civics classes? This man could not run a fruit stand without loosing money! The Irish leagues with it's talent pool and should be close to on par with the Scottish leagues! The beautiful game is not so beautiful when idiots like him with no understanding of basic finance leads what should be a great Football Association. We need more regular Joe's running clubs and associations, we need less egotistical money hungry arses involved! You run a club/association like any business, slow and steady wins the race!

i don’t know how often i been asking i don’t want to spam Alfie Can you do a documentary on the afc Wimbledon on the nine promotions in eleven years, how they’re a fan own club and how they have a stadium in plough lane now. The story of they lost the club, how the F A allowed that and won’t allow that anymore. How they were very close to moving to ireland How they went up the English football leagues. It would be a good documentary video if you can do this. #thepeopleschannel

A very kind take on Delaneys bullying reign of greed. There was no surprise at his downfall. The audacity and cunning of the man to stay in power was long running and extreme.

Suggestion: how praful patel and fsdl ruined Indian football

Brilliant video Alfie easily the best channel on the RU-vid football scene

With a face any decent man wouldn't tire of punching in Ireland, watching this is like gazing at the festering wound he's left Irish football in. I was never Roy Keane's biggest fan but I was absolutely on his side during the Saipan incident. What happened since has only enhanced that. (That James Bond themed birthday party is the real kicker for me).

Bit far fetched to say John Delaney ruined Irish football. Irish football always struggled well before the Delaney era and after. Of course its popular to pile on Delaney but that's just mob mentality. Our problem is struggling to produce top quality players in sufficient numbers. Main reason is too many competing sports in Ireland which is unique among all counteries in Europe .

quality content as always Alfie

Only 9 minutes since the videos release and it's already filled with suggestions.

Belgium is a bigger country of course but Belgium was ranked 22nd in 2002. I'm honestly baffled by the football progress Belgium made ever since. Belgium and competence don't generally go together :p.

Love your videos and keep making these documentaries

I’m surprised I haven’t heard John Delaney’s name mentioned on HITC Sport

This was an excellent watch. Thank you for making this

Can you make a video on the 7 nations most likely to become 1st time world cup winners by the end of the 21st century.

Amazing story, I had no idea of Delaney's influence in the current state of Irish football. I really hope the Irish national team can bounce back. Cracking work as always, Alfie!

Great video, but the Aviva Stadium opened in 2010 not 2007

Fair play Alfie! I was at a few of the recent FAI Cup Finals when my own team - Cork City were up against our rivals in Dundalk - the thing that united the fans of both teams was our disgust with this man: They always cheat, They always lie, F*** Delaney and the FAI!

I get that making an ice sculpture is hard and this is not the point of the video, but that ice gun looked nothing like a Walther PPK or a Walther P99 (Bond's pistol during the last movies of the Brosnan era). So not only he used FAI funds for private expenses, but his own private expenses were not what was promised.

What happened to Panathinaikos?

Great to see and hear that they still call us United after we changed our name back to the original Waterford FC in 2016

Thank you so much for making this Alfie!

This is easily my favourite game of where the hell are you going with this in the history of this or indeed any other RU-vid video I’ve ever seen.

The one bit of credit he’s given is the football stadium. It’ is a rugby stadium, the by e oldest one in the world. The FAI became tenants. The don’t own the ground, just half the stadium which after so many years goes back to the Rugby Union. Who in fairness drove the stadium and paid their share without a bailout.

This channel is how I learn about world geography and history