GAME OF THE NIGHT
Country clubs not treated same as Dublin outfits
SHELBOURNE v BOHEMIANS
WHAT a goal Mark Coyle scored for Shels last Friday. He is a great captain. But supersub Sean Boyd does not get the credit he deserves.
Bohs had a tough night in Dalymount last week. They need a result here.
While table-toppers Shels will be slight favourites, I have a feeling Bohs won’t lose this one.
WE all love April Fools’ Day.
But I want to extend my congratulations to the FAI for finally showing some loving leadership in the League of Ireland to ensure that April Fools’ lasts for the entire month.
Because surely it was a windup this week to hear that the FAI’s huge and influential constituent, the Munster Football Association (MFA), declare that Turner’s Cross is closed indefinitely.
The venue is only the iconic home of Cork City FC.
Potentially Ireland’s biggest football club, City are not sure where and when they will play their next home game.
You could not make this up. It is simply embarrassing that the MFA would release this statement about the pitch.
Ignored
Because either they have gone to their parent body and asked: ‘is this a good idea?’ or they have simply ignored them.
We have 32 counties in our country and in every single one of them, football has a huge voice.
And yet this FAI, too often bunkered away in Abbotstown, seems to think that football does not go beyond the Pale.
Can you imagine the Dublin clubs having to deal with some of the issues our biggest professional clubs from the country are regularly faced with?
The ground closure is an insult to Cork City fans.
Convene
But did the powers that be in Abbotstown convene an emergency meeting and send down a crack team of FAI heavyweights to sit down with the MFA to find a solution?
How many FAI leaders have responded to the news by spending time in Cork this week?
Last week, did Jonathan Hill and our leaders send another crack FAI team up to Ballybofey to get to the bottom of the embarrassing scenario involving the floodlight situation at Finn Park?
We all thought these issues were covered under licensing requirements.
Maybe not.
And maybe FAI officials have been burning the midnight oil in Ballybofey since the start of April or maybe we are April fools to believe that this is the FAI’s priority.
To be fair you cannot accuse the FAI of discrimination, because the embarrassing mess in Cork represents Munster, and the Finn Park Floodlightgate represents Ulster.
And just to prove there is some consistency in the FAI, they made sure Connacht wasn’t left out either.
In the true spirit of the FAI’s April Fools’ month, Galway United got on a bus last Saturday morning to go and play their match in Sligo,
But halfway through their journey, they got the news that the massive Connacht derby at the Showgrounds was being called off...because of wind. You couldn’t make it up. Were the FAI embarrassed by the fact that some of Galway’s fans were already travelling to the game?
At 6pm, an hour and 45 minutes before the proposed kick-off, Met Eireann was actually downgrading the wind warning.
Of our leaders, I wonder who was in Sligo on Saturday night?
Who made the decision to call the game off?
And on what basis?
Well, my goodness me, the disrespect shown to Galway United, making fools of their wonderful supporters is contemptible.
I remember playing for
Galway United at Terryland and sometimes the opposition goalkeeper took a goal-kick and it was so windy that we would end up with a corner.
Those in the FAI who bother to cross the Shannon must realise how windy the place can get.
Well, the fact is that clubs get on with it and games go ahead.
The weather conditions were in the public domain for most of last week.
Money
And so to allow Galway, and their fans, to put in money, time and effort to get to Sligo before being told ‘sorry lads, the game is off’, well, that is something I would not even expect to see in an amateur league.
I just cannot imagine a Dublin derby being treated in the same manner as the Connacht derby.
The FAI’s commitment to April Fools’ is simply not good enough.
Cork City, Finn Harps, Galway United and Sligo Rovers all feel foolish right now.
And we like to hope that such bizarre unprofessionalism that affects our top players, managers, coaches, supporters and image of the League, won’t happen again.
I am unsure people even recognise just how embarrassing and fundamentally amateurish this makes our top league look.
The truth is that it is a disgrace that we have all been made to look like April Fools this month.