I don't think the FAI has ever been in a worse state than it is now

FROM FARCE TO WORSE: TIME HAS COME TO RAZE THE ASSOCIATION TO THE GROUND AND START AGAIN

- Eamonn Dunphy

BACK in May, Shane Robinson took over from Marc Canham in the FAI on an interim basis.

His full time appointment was confirmed this month.

He is now the FAI's Technical Director.

When he left, Canham was Chief Football Officer in Abbotstown.

This was a job title that didn't exist before it was bestowed on Canham a year ago.

He was out the door seven months later. That job title left with him. It no longer exists.

This sums up the nonsense of football's governing body in Ireland. Maybe we could reach for the old cliche about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but that would be unfair.

After all, many survived the Titanic going down.

How many survivors of the FAI's LinkedIn era will there be?

Will any of them be able to operate after being subjected to corporate gobbledygook for years?

On Wednesday, some of the FAI's head honchos went in front of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport.

What happened in that committee room only added to the belief that the FAI should be defunded and disbanded, and a new governing body put in its place.

The claims made by former Ireland women's team manager Eileen Gleeson are very serious, but the FAI heads were determined not to shed any light.

Fine Gael Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn asked some very strong and pertinent questions, but she was met with stonewall answers.

Again and again, the FAI representatives claimed that they couldn't answer because Gleeson's claims were part of an ongoing investigation.

I read plenty of the coverage of the Oireachtas Committee hearing, and much of it annoyed me.