JOHN TREACY PULLED no punches and blamed the Irish Amateur Boxing Association for backing out of a deal to keep Billy Walsh.
The fiasco came to a head yesterday after both sides failed to agree terms and Walsh resigned his position as high performance director.
“We were told last week that the deal is done,” Treacy, the head of the Irish Sports Council, told Newstalk Breakfast.
“Then we hear on Monday that it has fallen down on the non-financial aspects which is between an employer and employee and which beggars belief.
It is clearly a ridiculous situation to be in.
Treacy believed that a proposal tabled in late August had been accepted by all parties, including IABA chief executive Fergal Carruth and a board member, and said that he shook hands on the deal himself.
It is still unclear why the IABA backed out and why the agreement was never taken to the Association’s full board for its approval.
“It fell down on the non-financial aspects of the deal and that is really around the leadership of the programme,” Treacy said.
“We recognise that Billy is leader of the programme. The boxers do, and the tributes from the boxers if you heard them in the last couple of days, were clearly saying that he is really going to be missed.
He was the leader, he was the one who put the programmes together, and (it’s) a failure of the IABA to recognise that leadership.
He added: “Billy showed tremendous flexibility around the financial aspects, which was great for Billy to do that.
“When you do any deal, you have to leave a bit on the table for everyone, and here we were yesterday watching Billy Walsh sitting on his couch talking about being humiliated and undermined.”
Walsh is set to fly out to America on Thursday after agreeing terms to take charge of the US women’s national team.
“We appealed to (the IABA) to act on this,” Treacy said. “There was a total lack of urgency in our opinion.
“This is something we warned about eight months ago, to deal with this and deal with it swiftly, and it wasn’t done.”
