O’SHEA THE GOOD NEWS
GETTING John O’Shea on board as interim manager for this month’s friendlies is the first bit of really good news the Ireland team has had in a long, long time.
O’Shea is one of our greatest players and played in one of the best club teams ever for one of the best managers ever.
The Waterfordman won five Premier League titles and played for the Boys in Green, with great distinction, 118 times, being the third mostcapped Irish male international.
The former defender is a universally respected man in the game and to give him the job on an interim basis is something that delights all
Ireland fans.
Players will respect him, he’s a very nice man who knows his football and played for United under Alex Ferguson.
It will lift the gloom surrounding the Irish game and might encourage people to believe a bit more.
Obviously, it would be better if we had somebody to take the job permanently now but the FAI are promising that we will have someone by next month.
Promising
They have been promising things that have not happened for a long time now ...
Director of football Marc Canham (inset) says he’s at the endgame in his pursuit of a permanent successor to Stephen Kenny.
Well, it really doesn’t look like that from where I’m sitting.
What was really exposed when the FAI went in front of the Oireachtas last week was how unfit most of the people involved are to serve Irish football the way that it deserves to be served.
The chief executive had to hold his hands up to claiming money for holidays not taken, an amount which was paid back but it was an episode that was nonetheless shabby and messy.
FAI president Paul Cooke wasn’t giving CEO Jonathan Hill an unqualified vote of confidence, shall we say.
In the end, he refused to give Hill — who still lives in England — unquestionable backing.
When asked if he supported Hill it took him a long time to say ‘yes’ and even then he added that he did not have as much confidence in Hill as he had had before the revelation.
Mess
That’s where the
FAI is now.
It’s a shambles and they have made a mess of the hunt for a new senior men’s manager.
They were turned down by Lee Carsley, we understand. They have been turned down by Chris Coleman, who hasn’t got a job!
He is out of work but won’t work for the FAI!
It’s shocking stuff.
Last week they embarrassed the football community.
They couldn’t answer questions, they did not appear to be giving straight answers in some cases and the president could only give qualified support for the chief executive.
Where does that leave Hill? Where does this all leave the game in this country?
In a pretty bad place.
The game is ignored at grass roots and schoolboys levels — and how could it be otherwise when the CEO doesn’t live in the country while Canham would have very little knowledge of, say, the League of Ireland?
Why are we going to England to get a chief executive who I feel is unimpressive and a director of football who nobody had ever heard of?
O’Shea’s arrival doesn’t answer the long term problems facing Irish football but at least people won’t be embarrassed.