JOHN JOE DOHERTY, the former manager of the Donegal footballers, believes his successor Jim McGuinness was right to drop Kevin Cassidy from the county’s panel.
Cassidy claimed in the book ‘This Is Our Year’ that he helped to quell a player revolt during Doherty’s spell in charge, while also questioning some of the decisions of McGuinness’ management team in their most recent campaign.
Donegal claimed the 2011 Ulster title by beating Derry before going on to an All-Ireland semi-final defeat against Dublin.
“We live in a very critical world and obviously my two years with the county were unsuccessful. If Kevin was going to make a comment, he was entitled to make a critical comment, but from my point of view I would have a few problems with the book,” Doherty told RTE’s Sport at 7.
Doherty went on to claim that Cassidy broke dressing room confidentiality in making the comments in the book, and that McGuinness had no option but to axe him.
“At the start of the year they [the players] all signed a confidentiality clause [that said] that whatever the preparation for the Donegal team was to be, was kept within the four walls of the dressing room,” he added.
“Obviously that’s not the way it turned out and Jim took great exception to this. There are plenty of things in the book that I would take issue with myself.”
Cassidy, for his part, is standing his ground in the row and insists that everything he said in the book is ‘common knowledge’ and that he did not breach any confidentiality agreement.
“It was with total honesty that I approached it and I don’t believe I revealed any secrets within the squad,” Cassidy said. “Anything that I discussed had been said before the publication.”
