FAI staff are ‘rattled’ by the crisis tearing Irish football apart and feel ‘the ship has been rocked’.
That’s according to Fran Gavin, the association’s Director of Competitions who was a member of the FAI delegation grilled at an Oireachtas hearing last month.
FIFA chiefs in Switzerland will descend on FAI headquarters tomorrow to carry out a probe into the unfolding debacle.
That dramatic intervention comes a week after high-ranking FAI officials met UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin in Nyon last week.
Gavin said last night: “All the staff I talk to at the moment are a bit, I suppose, rattled with what’s happened over the last while.
“And I know the board are working hard with the governance group to try and sort out all those things.”
Some FAI employees fear for their wages after Sport Ireland cut its funding to the association on foot of the crisis and revelations concerning ex-CEO John Delaney.
Paul Cooke set become FAI's next treasurer as only candidate put forward for role
But Gavin - speaking as the FAI’s most senior representative at the launch of the ‘Unite the Union Champions Cup’ - said: “I’m not here to speak for the staff.
“I prefer for the staff to speak for themselves, that’s the way it works.
“You’ve got to take into consideration that the FAI has been a steady ship for a long time and suddenly the ship has been rocked.
“So people in any business would be concerned. There’s a governance group in place at the moment who are looking at restructuring the FAI.
“I think the FAI is going to go through a huge transition in the next two years from it.
“There’s a lot of good work being done in the FAI that seems to be overshadowed by what’s going on. I know a lot of the staff continue to do that work.
“That work has to be done to keep Irish football going and they do a really, really good job. That’s gone unnoticed a bit because the attention has gone elsewhere.
“The sooner we get back to that, the dust settles on everything and we have a new structure that we can get back up.”
Gavin added: “I’m still proud to be working for the FAI. Absolutely. And always will be.”
But asked if he and other staff felt let down by those running the association, Gavin said: “I’m not going into that. I’d prefer not to do that today.”
Asked why interim FAI CEO Rea Walshe or President Donal Conway did not attend yesterday’s launch, Gavin said: “It's a league initiative.”
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