A FEW months ago the British star John Hurt threatened to quit the body of actors and actresses that decides on the winners of the Academy Awards if the movie Lost in Translation won an Oscar.

It did. And no, I don’t know whether or not Mr. Hurt, best known around these parts for The Field and the fact that he lives in Ireland, lived up to his promise.

What I do know is that I finally got around to watching the movie late last Tuesday night, and I have to say I enjoyed Bill Murray’s take on the wonders of Tokyo — but only after another threat to quit became reality.

The aforementioned Mr. Hurt wasn’t involved, but the drama surrounding Fran Rooney’s protracted departure from his job as chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) was worthy of any B movie.

Just as I hit the play button on the DVD player the cell phone rang and an FAI mole whispered down the line, “He’s gone.”

Being half-asleep at the time, I thought the guy was referring to Bill Murray’s character in the movie. The reality dawned and I was out of the chair faster than you can say good night.

Fran Rooney had met the FAI in the car park at UCD and hammered out a deal to facilitate his “resignation.”

Less than 18 months after his celebrated arrival in office, Rooney followed the well worn route out the Merrion Square door with anything between $300,000 to half a million dollars in his back pocket, depending on which paper you read.

There’s no doubt the compensation package sweetened the blow for Rooney, a man whose position became untenable once senior staff at the FAI headquarters sent a nine-page letter of complaint about his managerial skills to the president Milo Corcoran.

What is upsetting here for people who care about Irish football is that the FAI is now searching for a fourth chief executive in just three years. What is even more upsetting is the ease with which they appointed former businessman of the year Rooney, described by one of those who selected him as “the worst thing to ever happen Irish football” after his departure last week.

When you consider everything from the Merriongate ticket saga back in 1994 to the Saipan fiasco of 2002, it must be pretty bad for the former chief executive to be described thus.

What worries me – and several more prominent football people – is how the FAI reacts now to this latest setback at a time when they are still slaves to the Genesis report that followed Saipan and urged change within the association.

Having given Rooney more power than any previous CEO, will the blazers now attempt to wrestle that power back? Will they attempt to drag Irish soccer back into the dark ages?

I hope not. We need firm leadership from the FAI now concerning the choice of a new man for the office with a revolving door.

They have to ensure that Irish football gets back to the real business, back to the roll-out of the technical development plan and back to the business of football on the pitch.

The politics have got to be put on the back burner as Irish soccer tries to escape this latest farce. We need a chief executive now who wants to take the game forward, not have his photograph taken with the Ireland team at Lansdowne Road.

A year and a half ago the FAI told us that Fran Rooney was that man, unless something was lost in translation in the press release that followed his appointment. They made a mess of that one; they cannot afford to make the same mistake again.