Kenny’s presidential lunch

THE presence of Michael D Higgins at the FAI headquarters on Thursday was, on one level, to be expected. This was the date of the President’s Cup media launch and Higgins is a keen football fan. Only the launch was cancelled three days earlier as Dundalk, one of the competing teams, were abroad at a warm weather training camp. Even so, Higgins turned up at Abbotstown where he had tea and cake with Stephen Kenny, the Ireland Under-21 manager and senior manager-elect. The chance to speak to the President, or Kenny himself, went abegging. It smacked of a PR own goal, one that FAI’s new media chief, Cathal Dervan, will be keen to avoid when he takes up his new role at the start of the Euro 2020 qualifiers in March.