Glorious FAI moments...

The Football Association of Ireland make Bertie and
the boys look like the most professional organisation
on earth............
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1965 - Ireland were in a play-off against Spain to
qualify for the 1966 World Cup. The FAI agreed to play
the game in Paris, where there would be far more
Spanish fans, if the FAI could have the Spanish share
of the gate money. The Spanish agreed, outnumbered the
Irish by about 45 to 1 and just about won the game
1-0.

1970s - The FAI regularly organised friendlies in
Poland, where officials enjoyed the 'night life' (yes,
that means pr**titutes), and once did not even stay in
the same city as the match. The players travelled to
one such game in the luggage carriage of a train,
while the officials relaxed on seats.

1980 - After Johnny Giles quit, Eoin Hand beat Paddy
Mulligan to the Ireland manager's job by one swing
vote. Afterwards, one FAI board member said that he
had voted for Hand because he thought Mulligan was the
person who had thrown a bun at him on an away trip....

1986 - Jack Charlton became Ireland manager by
accident, after the FAI messed up a vote intended to
give the job to Bob Paisley. At first Charlton got
only three votes out of eighteen, compared to nine for
Paisley. The FAI then couldn't contact Charlton to
tell him that he had got the job.

1986 - When a friend congratulated Charlton on his new
job, he replied 'What job?' On being told he was
Ireland manager, he replied 'Oh, I'd forgotten about
that.' When Charlton sent his first squad list to the
FAI, he found that an FAI official was adding players
that he liked onto the list.

1994 - The FAI bought £296,000 of World Cup tickets,
and gave most to a tout with the confidence-inspiring
nickname of 'George the Greek', who unsurprisingly did
a runner. The FAI ended up with a 'trading shortfall'
of over £200,000, for which they obtained just 314
extra tickets for one Ireland match.

1996 - Two referees won a court case against the FAI
after being downgraded for failing a new test. The
judge called the FAI 'an autocracy which was incapable
of abiding by its own rules'. The FAI quickly reacted
by writing to 142 other referees, banning them all
from refereeing for not taking the same test - the
exact opposite of the court judgment.

1999 - The FAI announced a plan to spend £65m on a new
stadium, but forgot to include the £16m cost of the
site, then spent years debating which of two
non-existent stadiums they would use. During the
optimistic FAI bid to host Euro 2008, the UEFA panel
was photographed examining an empty field.

2002 - The FAI prepared for the World Cup by
forgetting to bring proper footballs to an island that
had no proper football pitch, causing a minor civil
war back home. On returning, the FAI ordered an
independent investigation into itself, and pretty much
ignored the results.

2002 - The FAI tried to sell TV rights for Ireland
games to the subscription channel Sky. When the
Government told them that EU law protects important
cultural events for terrestrial TV viewers to watch
free, the FAI countered that Irish football is not
culturally important.

2005 - The FAI fired Brian Kerr, the only Irish
manager to have won European and World trophies, and
vowed to replace him with a World-class manager. This
turned out to be Stephen Staunton, the part-time
unofficial coach of the defenders at a poor English
third division team.

2007 - The FAI has just fined two League of Ireland
clubs EUR500 each because their fans were throwing
paper. This comes after they introduced a revised
promotion system for last season, which infuriated a
Dundalk fan so much that he occupied their offices and
doused himself with petrol.