The Full Statement From John Delaney On The Rio Ticket Scandal

FAI chief executive and OCI vice president John Delaney has issued a statement insisting he had “no knowledge of or involvement in anything to do with tickets for the Rio games” and that he was never contacted by Brazilian police.

Read the full statement in full below:

Loads of lads have asked me to make a statement on this Rio ticket thing that happened. Please read it carefully as it took myself and 26 other people, including a team of highly paid solicitors over a month to write it out, so pay attention. It’s probably our best one yet. 

The Olympic Council of Ireland Rio Olympics ticketing issue has given me a right pain in the bollox and has brought a lot of attention to my other dealings, which I’m not very happy about. The Brazilian lads even issued a warrant against my passport. Me, John Delaney, a warrant! They obviously had no idea who I was. Embarrassing for them. Anyway, everyone should know this warrant was withdrawn like 10 days ago. Everyone should know this! And if they don’t know, they should be ashamed of themselves for not following this story. It was on Six One news and everything. 

When the issue of the warrant was first publicised in Brazil, certain media outlets (the few that are not owned by my bud Denis O’Brien), took the opportunity to make the most serious and defamatory allegations against me. That’s right, ‘defamatory’, so don’t even question it as I’ll fucking sue you too. 

Currently I am the FAI’s nominee on the OCI Executive Committee. This committee is the Board of OCI and comprises of 13 people from a range of different sports and backgrounds who all previously agreed to know nothing and deny everything if the shit ever hit the fan. But if something important and worthwhile cropped up, we’d be the first ones to take the praise – basically a stereotypical Irish board. You know the ones. 

Being one of these loosely connected and irresponsible members, I refrained from engaging publicly on negative OCI matters that could damage my credibility. It would not have been beneficial for me to publicly comment on confidential OCI Board matters and I will continue to be bound by that confidentiality, as long as it suits me and my cause. My priority as an OCI board member, along with my colleagues, is to ensure that someone would take all the blame if something went wrong, and that the other 12 members would be free of any wrongdoing. And we did that job as best we could. 

I want to again assure the football family that:

• Brazil is a very bad place to tout tickets
• I’m still making €360,000 per year
• It’s all Pat Hickey’s fault
• I was only on the OCI board for the free nights out at Christmas and the AGM
• That 5mn bribe to shut me up over the Henry handball incident was put to great use, so it was
• I’m a chartered accountant 
• I’m still getting away with this shit 

I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for your continued support.

John