WAGING WAR IN MAYO
Chance of peace remote in saga that casts pall over ladies game
ON a day of contradictory statements, the only meeting of bitterly opposed minds in Mayo ladies football yesterday was in a unified call for silence.
The 12 players and two officials who departed Peter Leahy’s camp concluded their statement, issued to coincide with their press conference on Monday night, with the standard sign-off: ‘we do not wish to comment any more’.
The executive of the Mayo Ladies Gaelic Football County Board, a little over 12 hours later, responded: ‘We are glad that the players indicated there will be no further comment.’
The irony, apparently lost on both, is that silence has ensured the divide between them has been filled by rumour and innuendo.
And it would have been comical if it wasn’t so deadly serious that silence has been deemed as the conduit to heal the ugliest of wounds.
The only thing certain in the short term is that Peter Leahy, who once more received the full backing of his board yesterday, will continue as manager next year and, in the process, there will be no return of the 12 players who left.
It, most likely, will end the intercounty career of the game’s most celebrated talent, Cora Staunton but, in the longer term, it will leave the county’s most successful club Carnacon at war with its own county board.
And while it can be argued that the blame game favours nobody, the reality is that unless the truth wins out here, there will be no opportunity to move on.
The one positive which emerged from those who left the panel is they, at least, allowed their voice to be heard this time rather than hiding behind vague language, which invited innuendo rather than illumination.
Their initial statement, issued through the Women’s Gaelic Players Association (WPGA) back in July, did them few favours as they cited player welfare issues which were ‘personal’ to those involved.
That was dismissed yesterday by the Mayo board as being an ‘orchestrated and calculated’ use of language, which they claimed had dire personal consequences for Leahy.
‘It led to rumour and innuendo of the vilest nature and Peter Leahy, and indeed his family, who endured a torrid few weeks where they received online, telephone and face-to-face comments of a despicable nature,’ claimed the Mayo board in a statement.
The hurt, though, is applicable to both sides.
‘On my first night back, the majority of the training was all running. I made a passing comment to him like “Jesus Peter, is it going to be all running tonight or will it be any football?” said the former Mayo captain Sarah Tierney at a press conference on Monday night at which only two journalists were invited.
‘The following night I received a call from Peter about the comment I made and he basically attacked me on the phone.
“He basically said he didn’t give a f**k about how many All-Stars I had or what name I had made for myself in football.
‘He was the manager and what he said goes this year,’ she explained.
It was the first specific example of how the relationship between some players and their manager had broken down, but it still fell somewhat shy of justifying their claim that their decision to leave had been based on protecting their ‘mental health’.
The other message the players sought to hammer home was the explanation that they had all left for the same reasons and it had not been down to ‘team selection’ issue as Leahy had alleged last week.
‘There are four of us here that have started in the Connacht final. Why would we leave for selection issues?’ asked the team’s former vice-captain Fiona McHale.
The obvious response is that there were eight players at that press conference who hadn’t started, while it is stretching credibility that all eight players from the one club were impacted by player welfare issues, which somehow did not impinge on the other 28 who had remained.
On the other side, the board’s assertion that what had left some players disaffected was Leahy’s management ‘style’ — which dis-
‘He said he didn’t give a f**k how many All-Stars I had won or what name I had made in football’
played a lack of empathy with the genuine distress articulated by Tierney — while their determined efforts to get Carnacon thrown out of all competitions (which saw them return to the Connacht Council last night) hints at a mindset leaning towards vengeance rather than diplomacy.
Above all, there is the accusation that the disaffected players were motivated by a desire to stage a coup against Leahy, which led to unsuccessful pressure being put on those who remained to also withdraw prior to the game against Cavan.
‘We hope our senior team can look forward to playing next year without restriction or intimidation,’ signed off the board’s statement yesterday.
That language mirrored that of the players they were accusing, who claimed that they, too, felt ‘intimidated’ while playing under Leahy’s management.
With mediation having already failed, there is no other platform left to bring the warring factions together.
There is, of course, the WPGA who, through a spokesperson yesterday, claimed that they ‘represented all the players,’ yet the only statement that was released through their office was on behalf of the minority who had departed.
Asked about their detail of contact with the 28 players who remained, we were advised that a statement would be issued in due course.
That had not arrived by last night, but one more statement will do little to shatter the deafening sound of silence which is now likely to suffocate a football team at war.