Outgoing Football Association of Ireland chairperson Roy Barrett has outlined the reasons for his decision to leave his role, emphasising that he believes that the organisation is in a better place than when he started.
Barrett has spent the last three years attempting to help the FAI restore its reputation and return a level of financial stability to Irish football's indebted governing body.
And while admitting that it was a low bar when he took on the position, he believes that he is leaving the FAI in better health than when he arrived.
Barrett also spoke about how his departure would hopefully allow the FAI to meet Government requirements on gender balance, while he also called for increased funding for the sport, which he said was beneficial and integral to Irish society.
"There are actually a number of reasons I am standing down," Barrett told RTÉ Sport on Friday morning.
"Obviously, the requirement to have 40% gender balance by the end of 2023 was in my mind but there are other reasons as well.
"I have been in the role three years on the eighth of January and I have always had a view that whatever length of time I stayed on, there has been an awful lot of good work been done and I am happy the organisation is in a good place.
"I don’t believe the people in my type of role should stay for a long time. I do believe in either boards or organisations regenerating themselves. And maybe when you look at something like the FAI and the relatively tumultuous time it has come through and all that has happened, I am happy now where things have got to.
"New blood, new thoughts, new faces with new ideas is a good thing, in my view. It just so happens that it coincides with the requirement in terms of gender balance," added Barrett, regarding the Government directive on having 40% female board members. It currently stands at just 16%.
While Barrett has now signalled his intentions to step away, he stressed that he was in no particular hurry to depart and will stay on as long as needed to secure a smooth transition.
"Why I am doing it now is it affords the association time to find a suitable replacement and to do so in an orderly way. From my own perspective, I am happy to stay as long as that process takes.
"In terms of fulfilling my role and responsibilities I will approach it in the same way as I have for the last three years. I think it gives certainty and takes away some of the noise about how certain thresholds are going to be achieved and just gives clarity to the whole thing. I am happy with that."
Barrett admitted that he was surprised how bad things were within the organisation when he started the role in January 2020, and he felt the financial issues masked the levels of reputational damage that had also occurred.
"How bad was it? Listen, it was a complete mess from a financial perspective," he said.
"That was probably the most obvious part of it. What wasn’t as apparent was the damage done to the organisation itself, its reputation.
"Staff confidence levels were really just shot to pieces. That’s within the FAI, outside the FAI all the reputational issues made life for the people in the organisation extremely difficult.
"Going into it, I knew that is what it was going to be. I was probably, at a level, surprised that in many ways it was kind of worse but that is what it was. But I had confidence that with time and with effort that could be restored because behind the organisation and all that went on there was a fantastic game."
With two roles set to open up on the FAI board, Barrett is hopeful that the gender balance requirement will be fulfilled sooner rather than later, and he feels that it will encourage more women to get involved in the sport.
"We have Catherine (Guy) and Liz (Joyce) at the moment and hopefully Niamh O’Mahony will be ratified in the next couple of weeks. Over the period there will be two vacancies within the board and my hope and trust it that the board will look to fill those vacancies with female candidates," said Barrett.
"And I have no doubt that there are female candidates out there who would have a real interest in those roles and in this sport, and arguably will do a better job than I’ve been able to do.
"It should encourage more people to get involved in the game at whatever level that is and a job for football or indeed any sport is to create an environment which encourages people to step forward and get involved with the sport at any level.
"I think, these things take time, but once there are positive steps are taken then more positive steps will be taken and hopefully in 3-5 years’ time we won’t be talking about this because it will just be happening. But it does have to start somewhere.
"I fundamentally believe the tone has to be set at the top of the organisation and it has to be seen as this is an environment where positive steps are being taken to engage with, empower and encourage men and women to come forward to get involved in the game."
"The reality is there has been chronic underinvestment in Irish football for the last 20 years or so"
As for the future, Barrett feels it is imperative to secure greater funding for the sport and believes that football is the poor relation when compared with Gaelic games and rugby.
"The most obvious area the organisation needs to focus on now is the whole infrastructure within the game and the development of infrastructure within the game.
"The reality is there has been chronic underinvestment in Irish football for the last 20 years or so.
"If I put it in context: since 2000, and we can argue whether it is right or wrong, but the fact is that the GAA have got about €430 million in government grants, football has got €118 million, rugby has got €57 million.
"If you look at that per club, GAA has got €208,000 per club, rugby €280,000 per club, and football less than €100,000 per club.
"We have 1,200 different clubs, the facilities are grossly inadequate for where we are and where we are going. There are 220,000-odd registered players, 43,000-odd registered volunteers, and it’s a huge community sport.
"It’s not just a game of football thing. Football provides so many different benefits. You have models from UEFA and others which basically say that the net contribution of football to this country is 1.8billion (euros) plus per annum.
"So it is very significant from an economic, societal and health perspective and the needs are only going to get greater.
"I’d be arguing that Government should be providing more money to sport in general but in particular to football given that it is a community-based sport with all the benefits that it brings and if there is one critical area of focus, that is where it should be. And it is going to take time."
