DELOITTE HAS REPORTED the Football Association of Ireland for breaking company law to the Companies Registration Office (CRO). 

The FAI’s official auditors filed the H4 report on 12 April, noting that the association’s accounts were not being properly kept. 

It declared that the FAI “is contravening section 281 and section 282 of the Companies Act 2014″. 

Section 281 of the Act says that “adequate accounting records” should be kept, while section 282 describes what those accounts should look like. 

It says that ‘adequate account records’ are those that correctly record and explain the transactions of a company; that are kept on a continuous and consistent basis; and include all sums of money received and expended by the company.

The CRO is the central repository of public statutory information on Irish companies and business names. 

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If found to be guilty of contravening those sections of the law, companies and its directors can be subject to fines of up to €50,000 and prison terms of up to five years.

In a statement today, Fine Gael TD Noel Rock said that only two other H4 forms, indicating a breach of the law, have been filed with the CRO in the past 12 months.  

Yesterday, the FAI said that its former CEO and current executive vice president John Delaney had offered to step aside while an investigation into matters which concerned the board had taken place. 

Two other board members, Honorary Treasurer Eddie Murray and Honorary Secretary Michael Cody, also offered their resignations. 

The move came after almost four weeks of controversy following the Sunday Times’ revelations surrounding a €100,000 ‘bridging loan’ made by Delaney to the FAI in April 2017.

With reporting by Gavin Cooney