AN EMBARRASSING FAILURE
Even O’Neill voiced his ‘surprise’ at the way the SFA were going about their business
ATOTAL of 64 days passed between an initial approach to their counterparts in Northern Ireland and the SFA finally being able to hold face-to-face talks with Michael O’Neill.
That yawning interval provided sufficient time for a royal wedding to be announced.
Somehow, Stewart Regan’s protracted courtship of O’Neill seemed a more complicated affair to arrange than the world-watched union of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
And unlike the happy couple, there would be no exchange of vows at its end.
O’Neill’s rejection of an offer to succeed Gordon Strachan is an obvious embarrassment for the SFA chief executive and his colleagues. It also leaves behind a confetti of questions about how this whole drawn-out process was handled.
The Hampden hierarchy seemed guileless in their approach. While a justifiable financial prudence played some part in extending the timescale of this failed pursuit, they were outmanoeuvred by rivals determined not to give up their man.
The conclusion leaves Scotland back at square one, looking ahead to four friendlies in the next five months without any clear idea of who will be in charge.
O’Neill was supposed to be the perfect option. On the list of candidates drawn up by a sub-committee of the SFA board — Regan, president Alan McRae, vice-president Rod Petrie and Partick Thistle managing director Ian Maxwell — his name sat atop with a clear white margin below it.
The 48-year-old was the Edinburgh resident with a proven track record of reaching major tournaments. He was also leading a Northern Ireland squad beginning to wrinkle around the edges as age threatened to catch up with some key players.
Scotland could offer a far greater pool of youthful talent, the chance to play as a host nation in Euro 2020 and a fresh challenge in an environment O’Neill knew extremely well. Still, though, it wasn’t enough. The case for taking the short hop between employers wasn’t convincingly made.
The conclusion doesn’t really come as a major shock to anyone who has closely followed events.
As far back as mid-December, O’Neill was expressing ‘surprise’ on a Northern Irish radio station about how the SFA had gone about attempting to recruit him.
While his statement yesterday spoke of gratitude for the ‘very professional manner in which (the SFA) conducted negotiations’, it hardly takes a leap of faith to imagine he harboured some doubts about the way the pieces were being put together.
Certainly, they were puzzled in Belfast from the start.
When the call from Glasgow went into the IFA offices on November 15, it was just three days after Northern Ireland’s World Cup ambitions came to an agonising end with defeat to Switzerland in the play-offs.
The timing raised eyebrows. A disputed penalty had cost O’Neill the chance to follow up his Euro 2016 qualification and the disappointment felt was deep. The Northern Ireland manager was also dealing with a far more personal issue. His mother, Patricia, was entering the final stages of a long illness and would pass away on November 20.
Considerations about his future employment were obviously the furthest thing from O’Neill’s mind that week. A period of quiet was inevitable. But it extended on and on and on. Regan went to a board meeting on December 7 to gain approval for further action. It was agreed that talks between the two governing bodies should continue, with the thorny issue of compensation at their core.
The IFA insisted it was clear that the SFA would have to agree to meet a £500,000 clause before actually speaking to O’Neill.
Proof of that was sought at Hampden. Concerns about committing to a cost that might not actually apply were valid. Legal checks and due diligence have to be made.
But the time taken over it still seems inordinate. It wasn’t until January 12 that it was confirmed agreement had been reached with the IFA and that discussions could begin with O’Neill the following week.
By that point, of course, the landscape had changed from how it appeared two months earlier.
On November 22, a week after the SFA’s initial approach, the IFA put a new six-year contract on the table for O’Neill.
It would raise his existing £500,000 salary to £700,000 and grant the kind of financial security rarely found in the club game.
West Bromwich Albion had shown some interest in his services before opting for Alan Pardew’s Premier League experience. An earlier approach from Sunderland had been swiftly dismissed.
It was clear O’Neill was holding all the cards. The only candidate actively in the running for the Scotland job, his current employers were pushing the boat out to an extraordinary degree. He duly held a first round of talks over extending his deal with the IFA before Christmas.
The SFA could not match the basic salary on offer in Belfast, but were willing to offer a substantial bonus for reaching Scotland’s first finals since the 1998 World Cup.
In truth, they had shown their hand long before last Thursday’s face-to-face talks. Those ‘productive’ discussions were as much about O’Neill quizzing the SFA as the other way round.
‘The tactics have been a bit naïve,’ ex-Scotland midfielder Michael Stewart told BBC Scotland last night.
‘They were so blatant in their pursuit of O’Neill that anyone who comes in next knows they are not the No 1 choice.
‘It was quite obvious they wanted O’Neill but to let it drag on so long just made everything seem a bit contradictory.
‘It strengthened the hand of O’Neill, who would probably have got a far better deal with Northern Ireland anyway after taking them to the Euros and almost to the World Cup.’
O’Neill’s new contract with the IFA has not yet been signed. Putting pen to paper will, however, make winners of both those parties. Scotland are again left to play the all-too-familiar role of losers. Unable to oversee any success on the pitch, the contest for O’Neill is another sorry result for Regan and the SFA.