UPDATE 1-Soccer-Irish government backs rescue package for governing body

Ireland's government agreed on Thursday to support a financial rescue package for the Football Association of Ireland, including restoration and doubling of its state funding that it said would ensure Irish soccer has a secure future. The FAI's auditors said last month it could not guarantee the body could continue as a going concern after an ordered restatement of the scandal-hit association's accounts increased its overall liability to 55 million euros ($61 million).

State funding, suspended last April amid a series of corporate governance probes, will be doubled to 5.8 million euros a year until 2023. The government will also provide an interest-free loan of 2.5 million euros each year until 2022. "We can now look forward to a rigorous rebuilding of the FAI from a toxic, autocratic, unfit-for-purpose organization to a fresh, cleansed association that can honorably represent and support Irish football, at home and also on the world stage," Sports Minister Shane Ross said in a statement.

The government said the intervention was part of a joint plan that involved a significant contribution of additional funding from the sport's European governing body, UEFA, and favorable terms of business offered by Bank of Ireland, the FAI's lender. The state assistance was also conditional on a long list of reforms being implemented, according to the memorandum of understanding agreed between the government and the FAI.

Bank of Ireland chief executive, Francesca McDonagh, said it had agreed a "sustainable solution" to ensure the FAI's future stability and that Ireland's largest lender had also agreed in principle a sponsorship deal with the association. The FAI has been beset with problems since it acknowledged last year that it had broken state funding rules by failing to tell authorities about a 100,000 euro short-term loan made to it by former chief executive John Delaney to deal with cash flow issues in 2017.

Ireland's state corporate watchdog began legal proceedings against the FAI in May and its auditors, Deloitte, said the 98-year-old association's accounts were not being properly kept, contravening two sections of Irish company law. A separate state-commissioned independent audit of the association was also referred to police in November.

Delaney has since left the association and his role on the executive committee of UEFA in a clearout of the FAI's board. It has appointed independent directors for the first time and also named former Ireland striker Niall Quinn as interim deputy chief executive last week.

"This agreement is vital for Irish football and allows us to take the first steps in the rebirth of our sport," new FAI independent chairman Roy Barrett, the head of one of the country's largest stockbrokers, Goodbody, said in a statement.