Joe Delaney, the retired former FAI treasurer who left the association in the 1990s over a ticketing scandal, has joined his son John Delaney’s property management firm as a director.
he firm, Gerfurn, is one of a number of companies embroiled in a wide-ranging Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) investigation into John Delaney and the FAI.
Joe Delaney, now 82, replaces his late wife Joan as a director. Joan Delaney was only appointed as a director to Gerfurn, which managed a number of Delaney’s property interests, in May 2021.
She died last August 1. A filing by John Delaney said his father replaced his mother as Gerfurn director on the same date. The other director of Gerfurn is listed as Clodagh Kevlin, a sister of John Delaney’s ex-fiancee, but sources indicate that she has nothing to do with the company.
Gerfurn was originally set up by Athlone-based Gerard Moran as a furniture business but in recent years it managed property investments including at a small number of houses built by John Delaney’s development partnership JMPHE in Carrick-on-Suir in Tipperary.
It is understood that among the issues being probed by the CEA are any transactions between Gerfurn and Pillarview, a company run by Delaney’s friends which was involved in helping him with his personal finances in 2018 and 2019.
Gerfurn’s accounts to March 2022 show a deficit of almost €99,000. A note states that “although no formal resolution has been passed to date, it is anticipated that the directors will arrange for the orderly wind-up of the company in due course”.
A number of emails relating to Gerfurn’s business and property transactions are listed among the 1,123 FAI records that the High Court ordered should be released to the CEA’s long-running criminal investigation into Delaney and the FAI.
Delaney has appealed that judgment after he failed in his claim that the emails were legally privileged. The case is up for mention before the Court of Appeal on February 17.
In an affidavit filed in the High Court, Delaney listed “John Delaney v Gerard Moran, Gerfurn” as one of 78 legal actions he insisted were “extant” and therefore made the emails sought by the CEA legally privileged. The CEA said litigation privilege claimed by Delaney could not be upheld when the litigation had concluded.
Mr Moran is listed as owning a third of Gerfurn’s shares with Delaney owning two-thirds.
The annual return, signed on January 24 by both John and Joe Delaney, lists John Delaney’s other directorships as including the FAI and AUL-FAI (Athletic Union League-FAI) although he resigned from both boards in 2019. The filing does not list Delaney’s English consultancy Delay Ltd, which has reported accumulated profits of €382,000.
Joe Delaney’s appointment as a director of Gerfurn is the first time he has been a co-director with his son since they were directors of Cameo Products, a Kerry-based bakery, up to 2000. John Delaney is still a shareholder there.
Joe Delaney left the FAI under a cloud in 1996 following stories from Sunday Independent reporter Veronica Guerin that exposed dealings with ticket touts at World Cups that left the FAI out of pocket until he paid £100,000 to cover the shortfall.
At the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ FAI meeting in the Westbury Hotel Joe Delaney was forced out of the FAI treasurer role.
John Delaney, who was elected to the same position within five years, was by his side.
