It’s unclear whether we’re seeing Plan A, B or C but nothing can be ruled in or out with FAI..
WHEN the FAI’S battered reputation was circling the drain in Leinster House last week, it felt like an opportune time to smash the glass and press the big red button.
Revealing or even leaking the name of the next Ireland manager – interim or otherwise – might have deflected some of the heat from their under-fire top brass on the day.
Jonathan Hill’s neck is still on the line over the paymentfor-holidays furore and his watery account of it at the Oireachtas Committee and Public Accounts Committee.
And it wasn’t a great look for the chief executive when president Paul Cooke, under repeated questioning from politicians, refused to offer Hill his unequivocal backing as FAI boss.
Cooke said his confidence in Hill had been ‘challenged’ by events, whetting the appetite for yesterday’s potentially explosive board meeting that the FAI could have sold tickets to.
With the clock ticking down to next month’s home friendlies with Belgium and Switzerland, FAI chiefs knew they had to act sooner rather than later on the managerial hunt.
The 12.46pm email confirmation of John O’shea’s interim appointment came just three-and-a-bit hours before that board meeting.
It smacked of a deflection tactic. And, as luck would have it, Virgin Media Television just happened to be on site at FAI headquarters, with their cameras all ready to roll to capture the big O’shea announcement.
Optics are everything to an association obsessed with image and the key figures all know how damaging last week’s debacle was.
In theory, yesterday’s plan of attack was certainly a cleaner look than, say, one month ago.
For the FAI’S January board meeting, RTE and the national newspapers were camped in the car park outside for over four hours before the discussion concluded.
Hill, a month out from the PAC hearing and with a managerial appointment on his mind, dodged the media that day, slipping out a side door with director of football Marc
Canham.
Now, the hunt for a new manager isn’t the only headache Hill has to contend amid calls for his head.
He’s not only attempting to firefight outside of the FAI, but inside the building too.
O’shea’s appointment is a significant development in a succession race that, by tomorrow, will be 100 days in duration. But the devil is in the detail of the FAI’S statement.
Particularly so, the line declaring rather emphatically that Kenny’s permanent successor will be appointed in early April.
It read: “The process for the appointment of a new Men’s Head Coach is near completion and we are looking forward to announce (sic) that appointment in April.”
No longer is Canham speaking in vague, wishywashy language about the process ‘nearing a conclusion’.
There’s now an explicit timeline in play, suggesting the FAI have their man lined up – even if there are a number of ‘outs’ available to them.
Lee Carsley’s intentions remain unclear but there’s nothing new there.
The former Ireland international has played his cards close to his chest throughout, as have those around him. Claims he could suddenly be back in the frame only stack up to scrutiny if he was ever out of the picture in the first place.
The FAI never closed any door on their longtime target, who will take charge of
England’s U21s away to Azerbaijan and home to Luxembourg in March.
But what then?
The European champions – a title secured last summer under Carsley’s watch – don’t play another competitive game until visiting Northern Ireland on September 6.
That’s time enough for England to find a successor.
Or, for the craic, maybe the FAI are stalling until April to see how pantomime villain Gus Poyet fares in Greece’s Euro playoff semi-final against Kazakhstan on March 21.
The winner plays Georgia or Luxembourg in the final five days later, with Poyet out of contract with the Greek FA beyond that. Either way, he’s an unlikely contender.
Or, could the FAI simply be waiting to see how things pan out for O’shea.
You couldn’t rule anything out after a process that led many to assume the FAI were stumbling around the dark.
Yesterday’s statement certainly suggests they are closing in on a permanent appointment. And yet it’s also phrased in such a way that leaves room to activate a number of backup plans if needed.
How many of those have been deployed already is a key question, unless Carsley is the man sitting behind the curtain to the FAI’S big ‘Wizard of Oz’ reveal in April.