February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
A busy club season is in full swing, nothing important is happening on the international from for four months, and yet this ugly dog of a game still as to be played. Is it any wonder that the number of withdrawals has bordered on the heroic?
Don Givens takes charge for Ireland in what he says will be his only game in charge of the national side. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so quick to rule himself out of the race to succeed Mick McCarthy, he’d have a bigger squad to choose from for the game. As it is, a barely credible 11 players have deigned to make the trip to Athens. Ten others pulled out on Sunday night. Stephen Carr, Gary Kelly, Robbie Keane, Mark Kinsella, Andy O’Brien, Damien Duff, Graham Barrett, Kevin Kilbane, Ian Harte and Clinton Morrisson all joined Mark Kennedy in crying off. David Connolly, who wasn’t in the original squad, was invited on to the squad by Givens on Sunday but was so angry at not having been asked in the first place that he refused to join. A sullen, fits and starts international career could well be over.
On the bright side, there have been call ups for two of the domestic game’s more exciting talents. Glen Crowe and Wesley Hoolahan have both joined the squad and both can reasonably be expected to be involved at some stage, Crowe especially, given that he’s the squad’s only recognized striker. If either of them play, it will be the first international appearance by a national league player since Pat Byrne of Shamrock Rovers played against Czechoslovakia way back in 1986. There were also belated call up for the Coventry pair Richie Partridge and Barry Quinn.
Meanwhile, the organization in charge of soccer in Ireland, the FAI, sit today with no general secretary, no manager, no stadium, their best player in exile and their latest bid to hold a major championship lying in tatters. And that’s to say nothing of a domestic game completely removed from the international side as well as the prospect of two days’ rain being enough to cause Shelbourne, the country’s biggest club to teeter on the brink of extinction.
There is, of course, talk that things may change now that the FAI have a template to work from — last week’s Genesis report outlining the association’s most glaring problems. But there have been reports before and nothing has changed. There has been talk of revolution before and still the same old failings persist. Why this time should be any different is anyone’s guess.
In the short-term, what has happened is that Brendan Menton fell on his sword, resigning as general secretary, but he wasn’t exactly cast out into the street in a dustcart. Instead of walking the plank, Menton shuffled his way down the hall to a new office and an as yet unidentified new job. Hardly a sweeping change.
No other FAI head has rolled as a result of the most damning report into the FAI’s internal machinations ever carried out. Not one FAI board member has carried any portion of the can for what happened in Saipan in May or for the myriad other fiascos that have been the FAI’s lot over the past few years. The report has come up with five new posts that need to be filled in the association, such as director of communications, director of marketing, and chief executive. The biggest worry now is that the FAI will fill these positions with people already on the Merrion Square payroll.