FAI Board Exploring Ways To Give CEO Bonus To Reward Handling Of Israel Fixtures

SUCH WAS the lack of headlines and controversy created from the FAI’s decision to fulfill its Nation’s League fixtures against Israel, WWN Sport can confirm the FAI board is exploring ways to reward CEO David Courell with a bonus.

“What I like about how it was handled was that at every turn when things could have been made better, the worst option was chosen,” said one board member, who thinks it would set a terrible precedent if executives aren’t rewarded when they artfully guide the FAI further into choppy waters and a whirlpool despite calm waters visible close by.

“And whose idea was it to shift focus onto the players? Make it very clear to the media they had a vote, so it was like shifting the responsibility for all this on them – a squad made up of a lot of young internationals with just a handful of caps. Genius,” they added.

Some have bizarrely accused the FAI of lacking leadership on this issue and being muddled in their explanations, and handling the resulting non-crisis poorly. The resulting criticism has been dismissed by sources WWN spoke with.

“Well people might say ‘how can the FAI afford to offer bonuses, you’re broke?’ But don’t forget, to scaremonger our members into voting to carry on with these games we made unsubstantiated claims we’d lose out on millions in revenue and go bankrupt, so presumably we now have millions of euro just lying around after playing the games. It’s only fair to divvy that out,” a source explained.

Even if a bonus is not granted, a lucrative career in business leadership talks titled ‘Navigating Crisis’ are possibly ahead for some senior FAI figures, who can expect a warm reception from peers in governance who think it’s a massive inconvenience when people bring up war crimes, dead children and genocide when you’re just trying to get on with business as usual.