Bosses still have a lot of fixing to do, claims Kerr
AS Brian Kerr sat in the black hard-backed chair in the spotlight of the Virgin Media Sports studio yesterday, I joked that he was like Magnus Magnusson about to ask questions on ‘Mastermind.’
Razor-sharp as ever, Kerr recalled how there were once ‘four Magnus Magnussons’ in an Icelandic team from his Liam Tuohy days with the Irish Youths in the early 80s.
If pressed, he’d probably have recalled their positions for his eye for detail remains forensic.
Like Magnusson, when Kerr starts an answer, he always finishes it and it was no surprise his chat took twice as long as that of Niall Quinn with about half the questions.
Kerr and Quinn are comrades on the VMS team, if not the FAI, which is both a shame and a puzzle.
While he may have been estranged from the FAI for almost 15 years, Kerr continues to have a handle on Irish football, at all levels.
And even were he back on the payroll, he’d probably offer the same frank analysis as he did yesterday when pressed about where the FAI top brass find themselves right now.
He acknowledged that ‘the previous regime was disastrous’ and how ‘Roy Barrett (FAI chairman) was caught over a barrel in the January negotiations, dealing with government and civil servants when they (FAI) had nothing in the kitty and wages had to be paid.’
‘They had to concede something in those negotiations that would have been very difficult to concede. It might have been easier to concede if your background wasn’t in football.’
Across the FAI affiliates, from the professionals among the SSE Airtricity League elite to the grassroots volunteers, there is a simmering of unrest towards the ‘suits’ running the show.
That the FAI Council has suddenly found its voice after a 15-year Trappist existence during the John Delaney rule is rich as they kept silent when Kerr, among others, were treated appallingly.
Aware of the rebellious mood in the thick August air, Kerr sought to strike a balance.
‘It’s alright saying people shouldn’t be dismissed because they haven’t been a player or involved in football all their life.
‘Equally, I would say just because you follow a team doesn’t mean you’re involved in football. Or you have experience of football because you go to watch matches.
‘The current (FAI) board have made some very good decisions and got some very good things done that they’ll tell you about on Wednesday. They’ve made (Stephen
Kenny) the manager, getting stuck into that one.
‘But they’ve made some bad decisions. They didn’t know enough about Irish football.’
Kerr observed how the three independent directors were drawn from professional backgrounds outside of the FAI yet the new members of the FAI executive and coaching staff were appointed from within.
‘They seem anxious to get experience, quality and a different perspective onto their board yet within the employees and their roles, they want to retain the positions from within.
‘The recent jobs weren’t advertised outside and I don’t think anybody from outside was interviewed.
‘I’m not sure how that fits in with the governance and protocols around Aidan Horan’s report and all the new ways of going about. That worries me.
‘They’ve got to fix some of that, do those things right. They’ve got to stop appointing people just from on the inside.’
Kerr is regarded as an outsider yet his zest for the sport at 67 is boyish. He bubbles with zest for the game, and for the League of Ireland which he fears is slipping down the European ranks.
‘I want our teams not to be playing in the first and second round in Europe. We’re going further back, no matter what anyone says.
‘League of Ireland teams are being beaten easily by teams from the lower rankings. We’ve got to get away from that but we are actually getting worse rather than better, apart from the odd little time when someone makes a burst like Rovers and Dundalk.
‘We’ve gone away from 10 years ago when, consistently, Cork, Derry, Pat’s, Drogheda, Bohs, Shels were all capable of winning a couple of rounds and we were beating the Swedish teams on a regular basis.
‘We’re slipping further behind many of the middle-ranking teams that we should be up with and we’ve got to get to that level.’
‘I want to see football better here, I want to see us having better players, better coaches; the game developed and participation increased. ‘They are the things that are in my head about how the game should be. I want to enjoy going to matches. ‘I think young kids would aspire to be part of it more than they do now. They go there now because that’s just the way it is.
‘I would like there to be a situation where they’re saying: “I want to be there, I want to play in that league that has good crowds, a high profile, that players are going into the international teams from, that fellahs are being sold for millions.”’