An unfriendly challenge in Africa remembered as IPFBA supporter launches his new book on Gaza

Fintan Drury, a founding member of the Irish Professional Footballers Association (IPFBA), launched his new book, Genocide: Sponsoring the Destruction of Palestine, at Hodges Figgis in Dublin on Thursday, June 18th, with Senator Frances Black doing the honours.

Dealing with the ongoing Gaza crisis, the publication (Merrion Press) follows last year’s very successful Catastrophe: Nakba II on the same subject. Having spent a vast career across media, PR, and business — covered in his insightful 2021 memoir See-Saw — Fintan’s focus on humanitarian issues also spans decades: from spending nine months as a GOAL volunteer in Darfur refugee camps in 1985, a similar mission among Syrians in Athens in 2016, to his campaigning writing on global migration.

Long before his contribution as an author and social justice advocate, Fintan was a fine soccer player. A highly effective striker for UCD, the Dubliner was instrumental in their election to the League of Ireland. Indeed, he lined out under legendary coach Theo Dunne as captain in the Belfield Babes’ first ever senior game — a League Cup tie against Drogheda United in August ’79. A month later, aged 21, the final-year Arts student scored the historic goal that secured College’s first league win away to Home Farm.

Fintan and his team-mates would make worldwide headline news for different reasons the following year. UCD travelled extensively and exotically during that era, far from the good-natured supporter banter of Tolka Park. Remarkably, from 1976 the B-Division outfit embarked on a series of landmark tours, becoming the first western football team to play in China, followed by trips to India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Jordan, the Philippines, Macao, the U.S., Kenya, and Australia.

In August 1980, Fintan was one of seventeen players who had to be rescued by Sudanese riot police after violent crowd trouble erupted during a match in Khartoum against local club Merikh, watched by 30,000 frenzied fans. Stones, bottles, bricks, and iron bars were thrown onto the pitch after the home captain was sent off for a dangerous tackle just five minutes in.

“After we scored, all hell broke loose. The crowd seemed to go mad…”

With UCD a goal up, tensions escalated again before half-time and two squads of riot police, armed with sub‑machine guns and tear gas, formed shields around the visiting players and officials who came under a hail of unfriendly fire. Dr Tony O’Neill, the tourists’ General Manager, described the episode as unlike anything he’d ever experienced:

“After we scored, all hell broke loose,” The Doc told reporters. “The crowd seemed to go mad. They take their soccer very seriously here, and but for the timely intervention of the security forces to protect us, the scene would have become very nasty indeed. When the police moved in, brandishing machine guns and throwing tear gas into the crowd to disperse them, our players were escorted to their dressing room and afterwards back to the Hilton Hotel.”

Luckily, none of the UCD players was seriously injured, though they were all roughly treated and spat on. The referee was seriously assaulted and bad to be taken to hospital. Unsurprisingly, the final match of the tour was cancelled for security reasons.

Left: Fintan Drury gets League of Ireland newcomers UCD off the mark in 1979. Centre: at the launch of a video his company produced about Ireland’s Euro 88 exploits with Ireland manager Jack Charlton and Tim O’Connor, RTÉ Head of Sport. Right: Fintan chatting on Thursday with Harry McCue who he helped to establish the IPFBA in late 2023.

Though Fintan went on to play for UCD at amateur level (as well as Hammond Lane, CYM and Pegasus in the Leinster Senior League, and managed Blackrock FC), his League of Ireland potential came second to his professional ambitions. In 1981 he had joined RTÉ as a journalist, working as a correspondent in Belfast at the height of the Troubles. One of his first productions was ‘The Hoops’, a documentary he presented about Shamrock Rovers.

Famously interviewing the framed Fr Niall O’Brien in his prison cell in the Philippines, Fintan’s incisive radio work won wide acclaim and he went on to be founding co-anchor of Morning Ireland alongside David Hanly in the mid-eighties, before taking a leave of absence to join GOAL back in Sudan, scene of that great escape. He would later serve as chairman of RTÉ and Paddy Power, and currently chairs Sport Against Racism Ireland (SARI).

🔉 Listen to Fintan on Sean O’Rourke’s Insights series on RTÉ in February here

Having entered the Public Relations realm in partnership with Bill O’Herlihy and Irish Open promoter Pat Heneghan in 1987 — though he still aired his broadcasting talents on specials like a Radharc programme about Nicaragua — Fintan soon branched out on his own to form Drury Communications. While primarily a corporate PR consultancy, its earliest high-profile clients included the Republic of Ireland soccer squad, whose commercial interests he tenaciously protected post-Euro 88.

Ensuring members of the ‘player pool’ no longer sold themselves short by negotiating improved sponsorship deals, appearance fees, and image rights, he became one of Ireland’s first UEFA-licensed player agents, managing the careers of icons like Liam Brady, and setting up Drury Sports Management in the early nineties. He is founding CEO of its successor, sports athletes agency Platinum One; Liam being one of its executive directors.

“Always supportive of charitable causes and with a deep interest in the domestic game, Fintan’s experience was hugely influential in the establishment of the IPFBA in late 2023, advancing the welfare and wellbeing of former professional footballers in this country,” says IPFBA Chair Harry McCue, who was delighted to attend the launch of his latest seminal project.

• Article by Jamie O’Keeffe