THE END OF the Vera Pauw Era, the beginning of a new one.
Now, after a messy few weeks, the FAI must deliver.
Chief Executive Jonathan Hill and Director of Football Marc Canham appeared at a high-profile media briefing yesterday morning, with the reasons behind Pauw’s departure top of the agenda.
Bottom line? “A different and fresh approach” was needed.
FAI Head of Women and Girls’ Football Eileen Gleeson is in interim charge as a new campaign looms. In just eight days’ time, the Aviva Stadium hosts its first-ever women’s international fixture in the Nations League opener against Northern Ireland. The FAI expect a crowd of 30,000.
A trip to Budapest to face Hungary also lies in wait, with this first post-World Cup camp due to begin on Monday.
Squad announcements generally take place on the Friday, if not long beforehand, though there has been no indication of such. Confirmation has landed of Gleeson’s interim staff, with Colin Healy and Emma Byrne assisting the Dubliner through her caretaker reign.
The process towards finding Pauw’s long-term successor has started, and the FAI has made an interesting commitment.
“Our aim is to have an appointment within the Uefa Nations League window,” Canham said yesterday, with Ireland contesting six games between now and early December.
Gleeson is not believed to be a contender for the permanent job. The FAI is keen to cast its net far and wide across the women’s market, with external support in place to assist.
The future of senior men’s manager Stephen Kenny appears bleak, with simultaneous groundwork presumably being done for another changing of the guard.
The countdown — and pressure — is on.
It took seven months for Northern Ireland to appoint new manager Tanya Oxtoby. 10 weeks was the time frame from the departure of Pauw’s predecessor Colin Bell to her installation back in 2019.
This next appointment is crucial and the FAI must deliver the correct candidate, with a pledge now in place with regards timing.
It’s more than two weeks since the Association decided on this change of direction — and against offering the history-making coach a new contract — the silence from Abbotstown until now striking.
Hill confirmed that many players and Canham had a “different position” to Pauw on Ireland’s style and preparation for games. “It was clear from conversations with Vera that she was not going to change her fundamental approach,” Hill said in his opening address.
The FAI chiefs also said that the resurfacing of allegations from Pauw’s time at Houston Dash in 2018, via an article in The Athletic, and the “distraction” through the build-up to the World Cup was a key issue.
The timing of the Athletic report appears to have been a major factor, despite the allegations — all of which she refutes — first emerging in December 2022.
This had all been reported by The 42 in recent weeks.
“I think her interaction with it in relation to June and July was different in the sense, and I think it’s been well documented, Vera chose to engage with The Athletic and then chose to talk to it in the press conference [before the France send-off game],” Hill explained.
“I advised her not to do it. I would not say to Vera, ‘Don’t do something’. You know Vera. But I advised her not to do something and as it turned out, there were certain people who did feel it was a distraction.”
The Englishman stopped short in identifying who, but you could hazard a guess.
Hill and Canham responded to Pauw’s parting shot, too, stressing that the outcome of the internal World Cup review was not “predetermined”, there was no interference with the squad and a contract extension had not been formally offered.
While there was clarity in some quarters, the water was muddied in others.
In an outgoing interview with RTÉ, Pauw claimed she was asked by the FAI recently if they had proof of her Garda vetting.
While confirming that she, like all FAI staff and coaches, was Garda vetted, Hill said: ”To be honest, I’m slightly confused about that in relation to where it came from.”
There ought not to be cracks such as this in a “thorough” and “balanced” review.
Nor more prolonged silence from the Association going forward, which created an unhelpful vacuum in recent weeks, perhaps months.
It’s important to learn from this, as a new era begins.
Football must now be the focus.
Time to deliver.
- Additional reporting from David Sneyd.
