Or, as Charles Haughey used to say, an Irish solution to an Irish problem.

The Gibraltar Declaration was from the pages of an Il Principe playbook, hence it can’t be described as GUBU-esque: Grotesque maybe, bizarre certainly, but unfortunately not unprecedented nor unbelievable.

Just like the McCarthy-Kenny compromise was a temporary arrangement arrived at within days of Martin O’Neill finally stepping down (the Derryman’s 2018 stint being another classic fudge), here was the JDFAI — less than a week after a High Court injunction and Sunday Times revelation — deciding and trying to have it both ways: To quell or throw off a maddening crowd wanting answers from the chief executive, if not a new one, and keep Delaney himself happy with a position that involves a lot of the same perks and a lot less of the accountability that went with the old job description.

Even The Boss would have applauded at the ingenuity of such a cabinet reshuffle and Irish solution to an Irish problem.

Historically, the administration of Irish sport has much in common with the graveyards in an adage: Full of indispensable men.

For decades, Pat Hickey seemed to move in and up the international corridors of Olympic power: If you can talk with crowds and press their flesh on the rubber chicken circuit, yet walk with kings like Samaranch, yours is the whole sports political globe and everything that’s in it.

In Cork GAA this century, they’ve had as many player strikes as they’ve had senior All-Irelands — and there’s a strong case that if it wasn’t for those three strikes, Cork wouldn’t have won any of those three All-Irelands — yet the supreme administrator whose beat that occurred on survived until he retired in December. Why? Because his sway further up the GAA’s administrative hierarchy was deemed invaluable, irreplaceable, just like his leadership and know-how heading into a new stadium project.

John Delaney has ploughed a similar path. He’s pressed the flesh, ate the rubber chickens — still does, in fact, which is why he’s been able to keep the grassroots onside, while still being able to walk among kings like Sepp and Michel and indeed Barry Egan. His boardroom carried many in deference to his supposed genius, laying the grounds for an unhealthy and outrageous level of groupthink. He’s even had his experience of new stadium projects, which, as Brian Kerr reminded the nation on Saturday, has left the association with Leeside-style financial difficulties.

Kerr also acknowledged in passing that Delaney has “done some good things”. As another man after his own heart might have put it, he’s done the state some service. But unfortunately for him, he’s about to find you cannot even fool some of the people all of the time.

The claims advanced by the tenacious journalism of Mark Tighe, that the JDFAI have been paying Delaney €3,000 a month since 2016 to rent a house on top of his extravagant salary is breathtaking. Irish football — lest it be confused as the FAI — has suffered its own form of austerity. Jobs and wages have been cut.

The financially-challenged grassroots, previously appeased by a handshake and odd cut ribbon and a brush with celebrity, are hardly going to be sated by a statement like Saturday’s or any dismissal wave to go eat cake.

The media and their questions certainly aren’t going to back down or go away, even when threatened with litigation and injunctions. What’s more, the State and Sport Ireland are hardly going to tolerate any more ducking and diving and fudging. The governance and administration of Irish sport has dramatically changed this past decade. Transparency, co-operation, and accountability are no longer buzzwords but enacted values.

No longer is anyone deluded that Irish Olympic sport is the possession of one person or body. Irish swimming didn’t just change its name, it has changed its structures and culture. A Sarah Keane, not a Hickey or Delaney, is the preferred new style of leader.

Even the GAA in Cork has seen the need for a break from the past. It would have been so easy for a candidate perceived to be sympathetic to the workings of the outgoing secretary to land the position as his successor. Instead Croke Park sent down Páraic Duffy to sit on the interview panel where he and its majority opted for a previous critic as well as officer of the old board, Kevin O’Donovan. Progressive. Inclusive. Open.

There are only so many cabinet reshuffles or defensive public statements you can try. And only so long you can stay. Working his way up the Association, Delaney has seen other CEOs resign. Bernard O’Byrne. Brendan Menton. Fran Rooney.

They clearly weren’t indispensable and neither was he.