Gavin Cooney

HEAVEN HELP THE Irish organisation in need of strong and stable leadership, but this is where Irish football now finds itself again. 

Various sections of the game are restive and muttering among themselves about breakaways, while one of the FAI’s key figures is now taking so many public lashings he’s beginning to resemble Monty Python’s Black Knight. 

The FAI is currently giving the public impression of a weary, sclerotic, and rudderless organisation, either unable or unwilling to publicly meet its many current challenges head-on. It is now the job of David Courell, the FAI’s affable and diligent chief executive, to change that perception. 

Various grassroots organisations are talking openly about needing to breakaway from the FAI altogether as part of a revolt against summer soccer, and now the professional League of Ireland clubs are making sounds about their own split from Abbotstown. 

With everyone now appearing to pull in different directions, existing splits are deepening to the point of fracture. Given we know the original sin of Irish football is that every unit isn’t pulling in the same direction a la the GAA, the current FAI leadership are presiding over the first steps of ruptures that risk condemning the sport to permanent dysfunction. 

Courell and the FAI board need to get a grip on things before it’s too late. 

They must first of all decide whether they have confidence in Canham, because the stunning silence in response to the barrage of criticism of Canham is doing nobody any favours. It’s grim for Canham on a personal level, and professionally it makes him look isolated at an organisation drifting along without even the energy to speak up for itself. 

But instead the radio silence has lingered. 

The big media showpiece of recent weeks was Tuesday’s launch of the women and girls’ action plan by Hannah Dingley, but Courell didn’t take questions from the press. 

The only other bit of talking we have had lately was the PR exercise with the two senior managers on the Late Late Show, which begged more questions than it answered. 

Carla Ward revealed on the show that, among the seven people interviewing her, Packie Bonner was “probably the only one that was talking football.” Er, what!? Did the guy whose job title is chief football officer not ask any questions about football? 

And if Bonner has as big an input into football decisions at the FAI as Ward suggests, why hasn’t he clarified remarks made nearly 18 months ago, beseeching Celtic to buy an LOI club as a feeder operation? Are these views informing any of the FAI’s football decisions?  

Clearing up this confusion matters: any diminishing of Canham’s significance risks damaging the implementation of his pathways plan, and can provide a handy cover for any sceptical affiliate eager to hobble the calendar football vote. 

This column has sympathy for Canham: trying to pull all the sport’s factions in the same direction without any serious budget to speak of is the impossible job, and his seemingly daily public kickings are difficult for anybody to take. 

Canham has admittedly left himself open to criticism by continually finding rakes on which to step, but he has also been made the face of failures that go beyond just him. The men’s managerial search was a mess, but it also had significant input from the former CEO Jonathan Hill along with Bonner and president Paul Cooke. Canham should not have been the only face of that long-travelling circus. 

Canham’s latest round of bad headlines came on Tuesday, with the public appearance of a letter from LOI Premier Division rejecting his proposals for a centralised Abbotstown academy providing an additional 45 days of training per year for high-potential players.

The background to this argument goes beyond Canham, and to the FAI’s failure to deliver on funding for academies, which the new sports minister Patrick O’Donovan has made clear is well down his priority list. 

Canham, of course, was the one forced to meekly acknowledge that the FAI “missed an opportunity” in relation to the potential of the Brexit Adjustment Reserve as a funding source for academies. The Fund was raised internally with Jonathan Hill early in 2023, and yet the FAI still managed to apply for the funds after the deadline closed. 

To hear Paschal Donohoe say publicly that the FAI applied too late tied the bow on another utter shambles.

But David Courell was in interim charge as CEO when he told an FAI AGM and subsequent press conference that the Association believed they could get some money from a Fund no longer open to applications. 

Not that this episode harmed Courell in the eyes of the FAI board, who appointed him on a permanent basis ahead of more experienced candidates like Sarah Keane. Courell was highly-regarded in the more detailed role of chief operating officer, but he wasn’t going to be immediately lost to the FAI if he didn’t land the top job.

At the time, Courell’s appointment looked, to use politicalspeak, a brave decision by the FAI board. Both parties must now prove it wasn’t simply the wrong one. 

Courell and the FAI board have to deliver the academy funding sharpish, they have to provide either a riposte or appeasement to Canham’s many critics, and above all, they cannot waste any precious time, energy and government goodwill in any politicking about potential breakaways. 

Critics of Stephen Kenny liked to point out that football is a results business.

Football administration is one too, but worse than bad results, the FAI have been delivering no results at all. That can’t go on for much longer.