FAI to fork out Bray compo - December 21, 2000
The FAI will pay £30,000 compensation to Bray Wanderers after an independent arbiter yesterday ruled that Jason Byrne should never have been banned from last season's FAI Cup semi-final.
Byrne, suspended for one game, sat out his ban during a Leinster Senior Cup match against St. Francis. But Bohemians, Bray's FAI Cup semi-final opponents, objected on the grounds that Bray had arranged the Leinster Senior Cup especially to purge Byrne's suspension.
Despite Bray's denials (they claimed St. Francis had requested the rearrangement of the fixture) and despite the fact that St. Patrick's Athletic's Trevor Molloy had been allowed to serve a ban during an LSC match, the FAI upheld Bohs' objection.
With top-scorer Byrne sitting in the stands, Bohemians went on to beat Bray 2-1, thus qualifying for the money-spinning UEFA Cup.
Independent arbiter Finbarr Flood - a former chairman of Shelbourne and now head of the Labour Court's industrial division - found that Byrne should not have been barred from the semi-final and awarded Bray £30,000 in compensation for potential loss of revenues.
It was the second major gaffe committed by the FAI last season. Their decision to dock three points from Kilkenny City also landed them in legal hot water and was overturned by an arbiter following a High Court decision in Kilkenny's favour.