Top Irish official quits as report backs Keane

The Football Association of Ireland followed its English counterpart in losing its most powerful man yesterday when its general secretary, Brendan Menton, resigned after the publication of a highly critical independent report into the organisation of the Republic's World Cup campaign. Embarrassingly for the FAI, the report, compiled by a Scottish-based management consultancy company, substantiated many of the criticisms made by Ireland's captain, Roy Keane, before he was sent home from Japan.

The report says that Ireland's strong showing in reaching the second round was achieved "despite the FAI, not because of it" and that they had "learnt nothing from previous World Cup campaigns". There were too few staff in Japan and the public relations was inadequate.

The report says an investment of £250,000 must be made in the appointment of key executives, although there was the possibility to make £127,000 of savings, but the FAI must look to increase annual subscriptions to raise an additional £63,000 for each of the next four years to pay for the radical changes.

It was after Keane went public in a newspaper interview about poor training facilities and the amateurish approach of the association that the manager, Mick McCarthy, decided to confront him at a team meeting. He produced the interview, which led to Keane's violent verbal outburst and subsequent banishment.

During the fall-out, Menton, 51, was repeatedly caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Having decided that none of their delegation should accompany the squad to Saipan two weeks before the tournament, the FAI was badly placed to intervene when Keane was falling out with McCarthy. At the crucial moment, when the Irish captain walked out, Menton was en route from Ireland to Japan. Later, as moves were being made in Dublin and Manchester to bring Keane back, he was in South Korea for a Fifa congress.

McCarthy, who resigned last week, and Menton were mostly mutually supportive, though the manager admitted to being "livid" at discovering that the FAI at one stage sent a fax to Fifa, world football's governing body, reinstating Keane without the manager's knowledge.

"We were crisis-prone," Menton admitted, "and our structures were totally inappropriate". He had been general secretary for 18 months, taking over from Bernard O'Byrne, who was forced to resign over his stubborn support for Eircom Park, a proposed new national stadium.

Irish football administration tends to stay within the family – literally in some cases – and among the favourites for the job is the current treasurer John Delaney, whose father was treasurer until becoming embroiled in a tickets scandal.