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Sluggish FAI need to get on the ball over new boss THREE
weeks into the New Year and Ireland’s international soccer players
still have no idea who their new boss will be.
True, the FAI made it clear they were in no particular rush to replace
Steve Staunton in the wake of his inevitable dismissal.
But there’s taking your time and there’s crawling along like
an aged snail with some particularly heavy shopping.
It’s not often you can advise someone to take a leaf out of the
English FA’s book — but in this case the FAI could do well
to look at their counterparts on this side of the water.
Once the ill-fated Steve McClaren had been sacked the FA wasted little
time in identifying a soccer manager of international renown and putting
together a financial package big enough to get him to sign on the dotted
line.
The FAI, in contrast, has handed the job of picking their next boss to
a three-man panel for reasons which have never been thoroughly explained
to anyone’s satisfaction. The suspicion still exists that it was
a desperate act of buck-passing so the trio can be blamed if it all goes
horribly wrong again.
At present it seems Terry Venables is the preferred choice — but
he’s made it clear he’s in no rush to take up the offer. Which
would seem to indicate he’s not all that keen on it anyway.
In the meantime FAI chief executive John Delaney must head to Sofia this
month to negotiate the Republic’s World Cup qualifying fixture dates
with his bargaining position not exactly strengthened by the absence of
a manager.
Further complications involve restrictions on the availability of Croke
Park.
Croker is out of bounds for part of the time due to the GAA football and
hurling championships — which means at least one and possibly two
away fixtures on September 6 and 10 with a double-header at home on October
11 and 15.
The new manager is likely to come in to find all the decisions on who,
where and when his side are playing in their qualifiers have already been
made without his input.
That all adds up to making an already potentially-difficult qualifying
campaign even harder.
If the FAI wants Ireland’s loyal supporters to believe they really
do know what they are doing then it’s time they got their fingers
out.
Pressure on Bertie
CONTINUED speculation over the Taoiseach’s tax status and his weekend
attack on the Mahon Tribunal for its questioning of his financial affairs
reveal a man under growing pressure.
Bertie Ahern has had to face a ceaseless stream of rumours and accusations
since details of donations and dig-outs to him first surfaced.
But he has not helped himself by failing to give categorical answers to
some questions and portraying himself as the innocent victim in all of
this.
Opposition parties were not wrong in their assertion over the weekend
that leaders of other countries would have lost office by now if such
financial questions were hanging over them.
The Taoiseach needs to see the speculation ended sooner rather than later
— otherwise he will do well to see out the rest of the year.
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