John Delaney spent nearly 1 million euros of FAI cash on items including hotels, limos, jewelry, and online shopping.

John Delaney spent nearly 1 million euros of FAI cash on items such as hotels, limos, jewelry and online shopping, it has been revealed.

Champagne Football, a new serialized book in The Sunday Times, put an end to Delaney’s lavish spending during his last five years as the organization’s CEO.

An unpublished accountants report revealed that the FAI also paid Delaney’s € 316,000 legal bills for defamation cases taken after the 2016 Olympics ticketing scandal.

Kosi Corporation, an accounting firm based in Newry, Co Down, was hired by Sport Ireland to investigate FAI finances, The Sunday Times reports.

Their report was never published, but was sent to Gardai and the Office of the Director of Corporate Compliance (ODCE) last November.

Accountants also found that the FAI paid € 70,000 for Delaney’s 50th birthday party, but a later Mazars report commissioned by the FAI estimated the party cost more than € 80,000.

Kosi found that the FAI spent € 242,000 on Delaney’s personal rental, airport and travel company expenses between 2015 and 2018 and that € 125,000 in personal expenses went to Delaney’s FAI credit card.

Last year, Delaney told the FAI board that he was “on credit” to them to the tune of 100,000 euros.

But Kosi discovered that his bill for expenses amounted to a whopping 972,626.42 euros.

In 2017 and 2018, Delaney returned € 227,629.42 to the FAI, including a sum of € 50,000 for her birthday party.

Kosi also revealed that the FAI was on the brink of insolvency over a three-year period from 2015 to 2018 and, on several occasions, had written checks for more than the funds available in its bank account and overdrawn.

In April 2017, Delaney made a controversial € 100,000 “bridging loan” to the organization.

At that time, the football organization faced a deficit of 400,000 euros if the checks it had issued for 593,000 euros were cashed.

An OECD investigation is currently underway and gardai has criticized Delaney for delaying matters by requesting additional time from the High Court to assess which files seized from his email account, according to him, are legally privileged or private.

Delaney left the FAI last year and is now based in London, where he has established a management consulting firm, Outperform Now.

The Irish Daily Mirror has tried to reach Delaney on several occasions but has been unable to reach him.