HILL DRIVEN TO HELP ‘AMBITIOUS’ BOSS FAI chief ready to give Kenny his full support
ASEASONED grass-roots footballer, FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill has scored over 450 career goals with Nottsborough FC, the amateur side he founded in London in 1988, although he admits he ‘lost count some time ago.’
For all his poaching skills, and a goals return which would impress Alan ‘Sniffer’ Clarke, his boyhood hero at Leeds, at 58, Hill is not the sort of fellah Stephen Kenny will be turning to for penalty box pointers as he seeks to resolve the Irish goals famine.
Hill knows his place as a Sunday footballer whose day job with the FAI is to ensure Kenny, as Irish manager, has all the resources he needs to best prepare the Republic of Ireland for a crammed World Cup campaign.
Almost four months into his FAI post, Hill was rolled out for the media yesterday and played a decent game, as he fielded a raft of deliveries, some of which were as tricky as those confronting the England batsmen in India.
To his credit, Hill’s guard was far straighter but as a Yorkshireman, you’d expect him to know all about the art of defence.
His Leeds background is more suited to a pint of pale ale than anything fizzy, which may explain, in part, why he’s not bothered about the contents of ‘Champagne Football’, the book which revealed the grubby excesses of John Delaney’s ruinous reign.
‘I am genuinely more interested in the next 20 years than I am the last 20 years and getting to a point whereby people won’t need to or want to read “Champagne Football”,’Hill explained.
Hill spoke with clarity, intelligence and compassion, acknowledging the rebuild required to repair the damaged FAI brand.
There was wry humour too when he said how he’d ‘learned enough in ten years at the FA to know that something unexpected will happen every single month of a football season.’
He addressed each journalist by their first name, a small courtesy perhaps but it’s the little details, as Trap used to say.
Hill has a five-year contract after which his legacy will be defined, but already you sense the FAI, after so many dropped balls, have appointed a safe pair of hands.
Come November 2025, Hill will hope his FAI objectives have been reached with Irish teams qualifying for more tournament finals; improved standards in the League of Ireland, greater participation at all levels, a raft of longterm sponsors on board, and a loosening of the financial noose around the FAI’s neck.
Rather than cower at the scale of the challenge he inherited at an Association that is peaky rather than perky ahead of turning 100 in June, he sees things as an opportunity to reset and start again. Not that there will be any change of name, he stressed.
To help point a way through problems, Hill draws inspiration from Pele, whose picture embracing Muhummad Ali, adorns his office wall in Balham, south London — he is re-locating to Dublin in time for new League of Ireland season on March 19.
‘I believe the best pass ever made in the history of global football was Pele’s to Carlos Alberto for the fourth goal in the 1970 World Cup final. Often, the simple solutions to what look like very complex issues are the most difficult to find but can be the most effective.’
It’s a mantra Kenny might consider as he seeks to banish the autumn angst and establish a secure platform in the World Cup qualifiers, which get under way in less than four weeks.
Kenny needs to inject confidence into his players, and oversee results against Serbia and Luxembourg that buy him, and his possession-based philosophy, time. While Hill was not involved with either Kenny’s appointment or the early elevation last spring when FAI chiefs moved on Mick McCarthy before the Euro play-offs, his backing for the senior manager ahead of World Cup battle came across as earnest and robust. ‘What we want is for Stephen to be as prepared as he can be. All we can control, we will, and give him all that support.’
“I genuinely
believe we can qualify”
‘Let’s hope he has most of the players for the games against Serbia and Luxembourg and we’ve a reasonable start, because I genuinely believe we can qualify from that group.
‘I know Stephen believes we can do (qualify). You’d expect him to because he’s an ambitious, committed, professional coach.’
Kenny yesterday added Anthony Barry of Chelsea, to his backroom team, ahead of naming his squad on March 18 for the opening Group A games.
Barry’s arrival will allow Kenny to move on from ‘Wembley-gate’ which, in part, cost him Damien Duff, who had a far higher profile as the Irish No 3.
Pressed on the rights and wrongs of Kenny’s video and impassioned speech at Wembley, Hill said, as an Englishman, he had no issue with the recording and insisted it was not his right ‘to interfere’ into how Kenny prepares his team.
‘Motivation is clearly a significant part of any coach’s armoury so I’m sure Stephen will seek to motivate his players in the way he feels best.’
Pointedly, Hill observed: ‘I suspect all of us would rather none of it happened. I am a little bit frustrated that at the end of February, three months after the whole issue was dealt with, is still being discussed.’
The arrival of Barry will dilute further debate.
After years where the former CEO ran the FAI as his own fiefdom, in Hill, the Association has an administrator who is there to serve the sport, not himself.
The tickets, trinkets and ‘trust me’ days of Delaney are over. This is no jaunt for Jonathan.