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Champagne Football by Mark Tighe & Paul Rowan
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Champagne Football

John Delaney and the Betrayal of Irish Football: The Inside Story

$14.29

Narrator Johnny Candon

This audiobook uses AI narration.

Weโ€™re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

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Length 10 hours 10 minutes
Language English
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Over the course of fifteen years, John Delaney ran the Football Association of Ireland as his own personal fiefdom. He had his critics, but his power was never seriously challenged until last year, when Mark Tighe and Paul Rowan published a sequence of stories in the Sunday Times containing damaging revelations about his personal compensation and the parlous financial situation of the FAI. Delaney's reputation as a great financial manager was left in tatters. He resigned under pressure, and the FAI was left hoping for a massive bail-out from the Irish taxpayer.

In Champagne Football, Tighe and Rowan dig deep into the story of Delaney's career and of the FAI's slide into ruin. They show how he surrounded himself with people whose personal loyalty he could count on, and a board that failed to notice that the association's finances were shot. They detail Delaney's skilful cultivation of opinion-formers outside the FAI. And they document the culture of excess that Delaney presided over and benefited from, to the detriment of the organization he led.

Champagne Football is a gripping, sometimes darkly hilarious and often enraging piece of reporting by the award-winning journalists who finally pulled back the curtain on the FAI's mismanagement.


'I read it in one sitting, it's a superb book' Eamon Dunphy, The Stand

'An astonishing exposรฉ' Martin Ziegler, The Times

'Excellent' Irish Sun

'A jaw-dropping story ... brilliant' Irish Times

'Essential reading' Irish Daily Star

'Astonishing ... Side-splittingly hilarious' Guardian

'A damming account' Sunday Independent

'An instant classic, one of the all-time great Irish sports books' Alan English

'Excellent ... includes staggering detail' Daily Mail

'A cracking read ... [An] incredible amount of jaw-dropping detail' Matt Cooper

'One of the most hotly-anticipated sport books of the year' Brendan O'Connor

'A masterpiece'
Tommy Martin

'At last, the truth of his ruinous reign has been rigorously and painstakingly exposed' Irish Daily Mail
'
An absolutely extraordinary book' Eoin McDevitt, Second Captains

'Remarkable. The desperate story of Irish football but also a book about how Ireland works. Outstanding'
Dion Fanning

ยฉ Mark Tighe, Paul Rowan 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Mark Tighe (Author)
Originally from Donegal, Mark Tighe is the legal correspondent of The Sunday Times in Ireland. As well as covering legal affairs, he specialises in investigative reporting. He was Irish newspaper news reporter of the year in 2018 and 2019. In 2019 he also won the Journalist of the Year award for his reporting on the FAI.

Paul Rowan (Author)
Born and raised in Dublin, Paul Rowan is the Irish football correspondent for The Sunday Times, and the author of The Team That Jack Built. In 2019 he was joint winner of the NewsBrands Campaigning Journalism and Investigative Journalism awards (alongside Mark Tighe and Colin Coyle) for his work on the FAI.

Mark Tighe (Author)
Originally from Donegal, Mark Tighe is the legal correspondent of The Sunday Times in Ireland. As well as covering legal affairs, he specialises in investigative reporting. He was Irish newspaper news reporter of the year in 2018 and 2019. In 2019 he also won the Journalist of the Year award for his reporting on the FAI.

Paul Rowan (Author)
Born and raised in Dublin, Paul Rowan is the Irish football correspondent for The Sunday Times, and the author of The Team That Jack Built. In 2019 he was joint winner of the NewsBrands Campaigning Journalism and Investigative Journalism awards (alongside Mark Tighe and Colin Coyle) for his work on the FAI.

Audiobook details

Authors:

Narrator:
Johnny Candon

ISBN:
9780241992784

Length:
10 hours 10 minutes

Language:
English

Publisher:
Penguin Books Ltd

Publication date:

Edition:
Unabridged

Illustration of person opening a gift

The perfect last-minute gift

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Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

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Reviews

A jaw-dropping tale of power and ego going unchecked I read it in one sitting, it's a superb book ... I urge people to buy it and read it even if you're not interested in football A cracking read ... [An] incredible amount of jaw-dropping detail The most important Irish sports book of the year and most significant book on Irish life itself ... Exceptional A superb piece of investigative journalism, in which a tale of tawdry venality is told with wit, verve, and just the right amount of disbelief Excellent Part thriller, part warning from history, part social diary, Champagne Football is a forensic and often tragicomic investigation into the biggest story in Irish sport. It's a fantastic read Fantastic ... The best book I've ever read about Irish football A damming account ... brilliantly detailed Jaw-dropping One of the most hotly-anticipated sport books of the year A jaw-dropping story ... brilliant Essential reading Compelling and often side-splittingly hilarious An absolutely extraordinary book Stellar work An extraordinary story of what happens when proper governance doesn't exist An astonishing exposรฉ An instant classic, one of the all-time great Irish sports books ... Terrific A masterpiece Remarkable. The desperate story of Irish football but also a book about how Ireland works. Outstanding Utterly COMPELLING ... I can't decide if Delaney is a machiavellian mastermind or a lucky chancer Made my blood boil Absolutely superb ... Good old fashioned gumboot journalism and a rollicking good read Fantastic ... A real page-turner The Irish sports book of the year Excellent ... includes staggering detail Astonishing ... It reads like an outrageous work of fiction with a scarcely believable cast of characters Brilliant ... Easily the Irish sports book of the year The most important book ever written about Irish sport ... This is the must-read of 2020 Astonishing ... One of the most important books published in this country. If you wanted to change Ireland, you would need to read this book A monumental piece of writing and investigation, a work that will go down as Irish sporting history's Woodward & Bernstein moment Expand reviews
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