The former League of Ireland player went on to manage the Ireland women’s soccer team before forging a career in the tech industry and then heading up the FAI.
The Dubliner started off with Home Farm and lined out for a number of other League of Ireland clubs. He stepped up to management when he was appointed as boss of the senior women’s international team in 1986, a post he held until 1991 when he was succeeded by Linda Gorman.
He then made his name in the business world, working with Baltimore Technologies from 1996. His work in that field led him to back to the FAI when he was hired as CEO in May 2003.
Rooney was the first to take up the FAI chief executive role, replacing the general secretary position previously held by Brendan Menton, as one of the key recommendations of the post-Saipan Genesis report.
He agreed a three-year contract with the FAI and on his appointment said he would be “providing the leadership for the FAI and the football community across the country”.
Rooney made a number of changes to the association, adapting a new logo and a tweak of the name, from FAI to FA Ireland, and at a difficult time for the national team Rooney was seen as a backer of manager Brian Kerr. But Rooney gone within 18 months after a series of internal rows.
The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Carmencita Hederman, is introduced to the Irish captain Marian Leahy and manager Fran Rooney before the UEFA Championship match against Sweden at Dalymount Park in May 1988. Photo: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
At a meeting just before his exit, only three members of the 60-strong FAI senior council backed Rooney, who left in November 2004 and was replaced by John Delaney, who came in as interim CEO before that appointment was made permanent.
Rooney then pursued a career in law, qualifying as a barrister in 2008 at the age of 52. He kept his link with sport and football, establishing a practice, Sports Law International, “to provide legal, managerial, professional financial services, advice and support to ensure sports persons throughout Europe are provided with all necessary assistance to enable them to participate fully, properly and effectively in their sport and career”.
In 2011 he represented the then Monaghan United manager Roddy Collins in his battle with the FAI when an FAI disciplinary committee issued a punishment for ‘disparaging comments’ made by Collins on RTÉ radio, a six-game ban and a €1,000 fine.
Rooney emerged again in 2019 after the exit of his controversial successor, Delaney, when he was highly critical of the original arrangement which would have seen Delaney leave his CEO post but keep on another FAI role as well as his UEFA Executive Committee position.
Rooney had an outsized impact on the Irish business world, spearheading one of the country’s first tech giants.
The company he helped build, IT security firm Baltimore Technologies, floated on the US Nasdaq Exchange during the first major dot com boom in the late 1990s. At its height, it was valued by the markets at $13bn, a level rarely reached by any Irish tech company before or since. The company’s meteoric rise was recognised in Ireland, with Rooney being awarded several entrepreneurial distinctions, including Business & Finance’s businessman of the year for 2000.
However, Baltimore Technologies was one of a number of tech firms that saw its valuation tumble after the stock market crash in early 2000.
Before IT security, Rooney held a number of managerial positions across a diverse range of companies and institutions, include National Irish Bank, An Post and Quay Financial Software.
After stepping down from Baltimore Technologies in 2001, he helped develop Ice Broadband with one of his daughters. In recent years, he became involved in blockchain technology.
He is survived by his children Yvonne, Dave, Laura and their spouses, his former wife Mary, his partner Jackie, two grandchildren and four siblings.
A funeral notice on RIP.ie said he died peacefully surrounded by his family on Monday at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin.
The notice read: “He will be sadly missed by his children Yvonne, Dave, Laura and their spouses Brian, Emma, Gary, his grandchildren Seán and Daire, former wife Mary, loving partner Jackie. Beloved son of the late John and Dolores and dear brother of John, Joe, Dermot, Imelda and the late Raymond. R.I.P. A special thanks to St. Vincent’s Hospital for their long term care of Fran and the staff at Beaumont Hospital who took good care of him in his final days.”
Mr Rooney will repose at Cunningham’s Funeral Home, Church Avenue, Blanchardstown, on Thursday evening from 5pm to 7pm, with removal to the Church of Our Lady Mother of the Church in Castleknock on Friday morning at 11am followed by Cremation in Newlands Cross Crematorium.