Mayo club’s motion calls for an inquiry into board ‘bullying’
Focus should not be on who they want as boss but on what kind of boss they want
ONE of Mayo’s biggest clubs, Castlebar Mitchels, have tabled a motion to this month’s County Convention, calling for an “external expert” to investigate allegations of bullying made against the county board in recent weeks.
The motion is unlikely to be discussed at the convention in Belmullet, however, and will be referred to the incoming executive committee for examination prior to the February county board meeting.
Castlebar declined to comment on their motion which followed on from an allegation by the Mayo GAA International Supporters Foundation in an October letter where chairman Tim O’Leary said there was a “culture of intimidation and bullying” within the board and that clubs “lived in fear”.
Discussion
Castlebar have also declined to confirm whether their AGM on Sunday recommended tabling a motion of no confidence in the board at a scheduled meeting tonight while also insisting that accredited journalists be allowed to attend future board meetings. A motion to that effect is down for discussion at tonight’s meeting.
The Mayo GAA International Supporters Foundation have made contact with the Mayo board’s legal representatives to pledge a minimum €1m over five years if a new series of conditions were met by 5pm yesterday evening.
The Foundation outlined that a new donor, believed to be US-based, was willing to provide €500,000, one of the existing donors would give €250,000, while there was €250,000 raised at the New York gala dinner in May, funds which have been retained as the Foundation seek assurances over governance and documentation over previous donations made by O’Leary.
Efforts to set up a meeting between GAA director-general Tom Ryan, members of the Connacht Council and representatives of the Foundation this week are understood to have stalled over a choice of venue.
IT is now not merely as it once seemed a question of who will become the next CEO of the FAI but, rather more critically, why on earth anyone would wish to? Given John Foley’s removal from the frame, it seems like an increasingly difficult task to find a candidate willing to immerse himself in the labyrinthine turbulence afflicting Abbotstown.
It had become clear that Foley’s candidacy was acceptable to some, though not all, of the increasingly widening constituency of sporting, political and commercial tentacles attempting to straitjacket the FAI.
And so the wait goes on for someone to step into John Delaney’s shoes.
The spotlight has always been on the position of CEO; but it should not escape those who have suffered the consequences of mismanagement that so many others took their eye off the ball, from mute accomplices in blazers to so many gullible, acquiescent wearers of tracksuits in all corners of the country.
Where to from here? The process of reform, perennially delayed, has persistently dragged.
A new board will be constituted, soon, but its evolution is a gnarled gestation, like the morphing of the butterfly from ugly to beauty; for remnants of the old will sit in partial judgment of the new.
The manner of Delaney’s departure, a lingering old guard, Noel Mooney’s awkward installation as a temporary stopgap and the aborted candidacy of Foley (whose links to the previous regime unsettled some) have all fuelled suspicion of the FAI’s commitment to urgent reform.
The deadline to complete the shortlist to fill three vacant independent director posts and that of an independent chairperson – two of the four people must be female – has passed.
International recruitment firm Amrop received more than 100 expressions of interest which would indicate that, despite legacy issues, the FAI remains an attractive proposition.
However, that some high-profile names – from Niall Quinn to Brian Kerr – have ridiculed and refused invitations to engage with this process also reflects that scepticism continues to abound.
Shane Ross’ ongoing contretemps with president Donal Conway remains a fiery dance at the crossroads between recidivism and reform.
Official Ireland is intimately acquainted with the metamorphosis; after years of popularity contests and celebrity courting, Irish sport is fed up with the old ways.
Enlightened and emboldened, a new generation has demanded change, from the parish hall and village club to literally Olympian heights of mismanagement.
The FAI are the last of the gang to die; nothing will ever be the same again but after knowing only one way under only one man, how can one person hope to effect the dramatic transformation needed?
It’s an extraordinarily difficult ques
tion but finding an answer may be startlingly simple.
And the first step should be not to assess what a chief executive might look like but rather how a chief executive might act.
The new FAI CEO should preferably be somebody we have never heard of – and it would be an additional bonus if they had never heard of the FAI, either.
Football is the most popular sport in the world because it is the simplest to arrange. There are tens of thousands of footballers in the country, tens of thousands of footballs.
The sport’s arteries spread to all corners of the land, countless volunteers and parents the pumping life-blood, devoting their free time to its promotion.
All that is required is someone to organise it all in a coherent manner; competent administration is required, not celebrity oversight.
With millions of euro from the Aviva debt hanging above them like a Damoclean sword, the new chief executive will not be in this gig for the perks that once propped up the ancient regime.
And just because the FAI are in a financial hole does not mean a fortune should be spent on handing a gold-plated shovel to someone else to start digging.
Attributes
He – or she – will not be in this gig for the money, for there is precious little left. Decency and empathy are key attributes.
There will be those who charge that the new CEO must have experience of the industry, never mind the country; but is this essential or merely desirable?
If the FAI properly re-constructs, it should contain therein all the football knowledge required to propagate the game, while also including divergent skills encompassing finance, marketing and political acumen.
The CEO should be truly the first amongst equals and, were the name and face to be unrecognisable amongst the wider public, all the better.
This is not a popularity contest. Most of all, the CEO should be intent on being deferential to the board to whom s/he must be answerable, and the wider game to whom s/he must at all times be subservient.
Irish soccer is about hundreds of thousands of people – not just one.