Contrite Liverpool boss shows true leadership qualities
RTE has agreed to a Government request to defer a decision on moving Lyric FM from Limerick. This is good, but it is not good enough.
They should stop pretending that they’re going to revisit the matter next September, they should simply state that it was a terrible decision in the first place. And an apology would also be nice.
They could start by apologising to the many Lyric employees who have had their lives darkened by these corporate games — indeed they could apologise to me personally for annoying me, for making me worry about Marty Whelan and John Kelly and Liz Nolan and Bernard Clarke, when I have more than enough things to be worried about already.
And to this end, they and everyone else in public life could watch TV pictures of the messiah Jurgen Klopp in Salzburg last week, making a public apology to an interpreter who had annoyed him at the press conference the previous day with a poor translation into German of the words of his captain Jordan Henderson.
This was no ‘sorry-ifanyone-was-so-cranky-asto-be-offended...’ effort, it was an actual apology. And in fact, not only was it an apology for his attitude, and his stupidity in the heat of the moment, it was an apology for doing it in public.
He had done the wrong thing, in the wrong place, in the wrong way, and so he extended his hand to the interpreter, and the interpreter shook his hand, happy to accept this sincere and well-made apology.
This is what leadership looks like.
In Ireland, the definition of a “good family man” used to be someone who didn’t try to find an open pub on Christmas Day.
Now this fine example has been emulated by Star Sports who are switching off their online casino in response to the Nobet364 movement.
This was started by the former problem gambler Alex Macey, who noted that Christmas can be especially difficult for the isolated individual, a time of “great turmoil” — and since the online casino is especially addictive, maybe the gambling corporations could give it a rest, just for one day?
Star Sports took him up on this — though for it to be universally meaningful, the rest of the casino community would have to go there too. And as yet, they are saying nothing, proceeding with their 365-day service, just because they can.
Even during the early years of World War I, hostilities ceased for one day, on all fronts. With the online gambling, for now at least, just one little corner of the battlefield will be silent.