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League of Ireland Horse Racing TV Listings GAA Fixtures The Video Review Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture Rugby Weekly Extra Dive into all the news and analysis 3 times a week The Football Family Weekly insights from the week’s big talking points Advertisement More Stories From left: FAI chairman Tony Keohane, CEO David Courell, and president Paul Cooke.James Lawlor/INPHO FAI aims to clear €38 million debt by 2036 and says 'football in this country needs to change' CEO David Courell also insists redundancy programme is necessity and they don’t expect repercussions from Israel vote. 7.15pm, 8 Nov 2025 Share options David Sneyd reports from FAI AGM THE FAI SAYS it aims to be debt-free by 2036 with the current level of borrowings at €38 million. In an address to General Assembly members at today’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), chief executive David Courell insisted that the association will be “on a much more solid financial footing post 2028.” Courell said “there was nothing wrong” with carrying debt in single million figures but that the volume of what the FAI have had to deal with in recent years is too high. The FAI had a reduced turnover of €61.56m for 2024 – down €718,000 on 2023 – with a surplus of €1.78m compared to €3.47m the previous year. The association’s cash balance for 2024 was also down from €1.6m to €0.9m, although Courell insists that with the aid of their recurring credit facility these reserves will be boosted to a figure of €6m which they want to maintain on a consistent basis. The FAI’s three main lenders are currently Bank of Ireland, Fifa, and Uefa, and the association’s president, Paul Cooke, said “we’re not fixated” by the debt levels as he also admitted that the reduction date of 2036 is not set in stone. “We view the debt as a necessary part of running an organisation. Obviously our debt is very high and we want to bring it down. Debt is part of a business,” Cooke said. “The aim, the intention at this time, is to be debt-free by 2036, but that could move.” Courell, sitting alongside him, added: “It’s not unnatural for an association to carry some debt, the volume of what we’ve been carrying in recent years is what’s wrong but as you progress and the numbers get down to single figures there’s nothing wrong with carrying a bit of debt. “In the last three years our debt repayments have been in the region of €3.9 million plus serving of debt on top of that of €1.5 million. Give or take. By virtue of this negotiation we will see the repayment to Bank of Ireland reduce from €3.9 million to €1.5 million over the next three years. Advertisement “We will catch up some of that lost ground in 2028 when we have the additionally hosting revenue.” That additional revenue relates to Euro 2028, and Courell and Cooke will travel to London next week for further meetings with counterparts in England, Wales and Scotland. This also comes at a time when up to 70 jobs are set to slashed as part of a redundancy programme by the FAI. SIPTU, which represents a cohort of the staff affected, said on Friday night that it was “a positive step” by FAI management to engage in Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) facilitated talks concerning threatened job losses. Courell confirmed that those talks have been set for 19 November and insisted that accusations that they only agreed to those talks “because of the impending AGM and to mitigate any action here is absolutely incorrect.” He says the FAI management “absolutely accepted the voluntary invitation to attend” and laid out the reasons for the job losses to come. “It’s not easy to go into a transformation programme like this and just think about people as boxes on a chart. It is difficult to deliver the message the organisation is going to change and football will be delivered in a different way moving forward. But football needs to change in this country. We can be better. I do believe this is the right change for the game.” Matters relating to this redundancy programme were carried out privately with the General Assembly members at the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) beforehand, as opposed to the AGM which the media were invited to attend. “People have to feel openly that they can speak, it’s confidential with staff… It’s a confidential matter for staff and us talking about staff in a public forum is not the right place,” Cooke said, although when it was put to him that doing so in front of 80 General Assembly members made it a public forum he countered that point. “They’re General Assembly members, we’re not speaking to the worldwide media… You’re only allowed in if you’re a member. “There were a number of questions about it (the redundancies). Naturally. I would say they (the General Assembly) are broadly comfortable [with the the process].” FAI independent chairman Tony Keohane, who along with Cooke was ratified for another term, weighed in on the redundancy discussion being held as part of the EGM. “We want to develop a programme of deeper discussions with the General Assembly anyway and not just meet them in a formal session. We need their feedback, insight and input.” In his address to those delegates at the AGM earlier in the afternoon, Keohane said: There are times it feels like one step forward and two steps back, and we face many challenges. The key issue of football parlance is that at times we don’t have the right formation and we don’t set ourselves up for success. We face many challenges as we continue to build trust. Trust with the football community, trust with government, trust with partners, trust with fans.” Nixon Morton was also re-elected to the FAI board and as part of his AGM message he said that the FAI have “lost trust and connection. If we are to hold our heads high again we need to bring it back. “We need to lift association again, we need to bring pride back to football. We need to do it the only way we know how; the hard way, the honest way.” It was as part of the EGM that the FAI agreed to submit a formal motion to the Uefa Executive Committee requesting the immediate suspension of the Israel Football Association (IFA) from Uefa competitions. Cooke confirmed that contact was made beforehand with the Israeli FA “out of courtesy and respect” but had yet to get a response. “As anyone who has listened to me knows, we are a members’ organisation, we have been mandated by our members to take a certain action and will do that,” Cooke said. “I am not giving my personal opinion either way.” Asked if there could be any repercussions, Courell said: “I hope not. We are a members’ led organisation, we are acting on the behest of our members’ position, every football federation should recognise that.” Cooke also insisted that “straight off the bat, we would play them (Israel), provided it was part of a UEFA competition, we are members of UEFA.” David Sneyd View 4 comments Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “FAI aims to clear €38 million debt by 2036 and says 'football in this country needs to change'”. 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