Today's Sunday Independent is dominated by Barry Egan's interview with John Delaney ahead of a documentary on the life and times of the FAI chief executive, part 1 of which is available on independent.ie.
The interview has already attracted the ire of fellow Sindo writer Paul Kimmage, who tore into it on Off The Ball this afternoon (listen here from the 41 minute mark), but there also appeared in the paper a piece by Niamh Horan under the headline "'He's like a big teddy bear' - FAI boss finds love with a beautiful blonde", which charts Delaney's relationship with Emma English, his girlfriend of four months.
It's a typical lovey-dovey, nobody-asked-but-look-how-happy-we-are piece, but Horan makes the shocking claim that the pair were the pair "were openly affectionate, smiling and holding hands" in Dublin Airport ahead of the FAI flight to Tbilisi. There is no mention of a chaperone, or whether the couple were approached by Airport Police for such flagrant indecency.
"It's important to say that we are not out promoting ourselves," said Delaney to the showbiz writer from the widely-read national Sunday title.
"The reason we are doing it is there is a lot of speculation and it was going to come out anyway. Once it is out we can have our own privacy after that."
Speculation? All right, then. Let's hope they do go back to keeping it private, but not before we marvel at this quote from English:
He's like a big teddy bear. He is exceptionally romantic. I often say it's the little things that matter to me and he does little things he wouldn't have done before. For example he would get the hair dryer out of my bag for me and plug it in and set it up when I am rushing to get ready and make me a cup of tea. I got the most amazing bunch of red roses one Sunday just because... there was no occasion... just to say he was thinking of me.
Why is this happening? At least nobody went down the Paul Daniels route with a "what attracted you to highly-paid football administrator John Delaney?" question. Read the rest of the piece here, because I just can't even.
