Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Erne’s ban on Donegal Press wasn’t right..& it won’t make a difference on the day
NEITHER national team from this island is taking part in the great festival of football that kicks-off in Moscow today but World Cup fever appears to have caught on in Fermanagh nonetheless.
As another summer of transfer speculation opens out in front of Antoine Griezmann, the Atletico Madrid star was presented at a press conference on Tuesday.
The proviso? France’s press officer insisted that the striker would only allow questions in French, to avoid club-related queries.
A quick-thinking Spanish journalist sought to override that, however, by using Google Translate to ask his question in French.
He held the microphone up to his phone’s speaker, much to the ire of the press officer who gruffly moved matters on.
Fast-forward a few hours then to Fermanagh’s press evening in Enniskillen ahead of Sunday week’s Ulster final, when it emerged that no one from the local media in Donegal was allowed to attend.
One Fermanagh-based freelance journalist from Donegal was told he wouldn’t be welcome if he was filing copy to outlets in his native county and Erne officials refused to offer an explanation as to why.
It’s as bizarre as it is petty. Copy from these type of events is rarely enlightening, unless you consider statements like “we’re just taking it one game at a time” and “we’re only concentrating on ourselves, not the opposition” to be particularly revelatory.
But, given that inter-county players are largely off limits outside of them, the media have little option but to attend and hope for the best.
That being said, by all accounts Rory Gallagher, Ryan Mcmenamin, Ryan Mccluskey and Eoin Donnelly were engaging and generous with their time.
The thing is, if people in Donegal want to read their musings in the run up to the Ulster final, they’ll easily be able to do so in the national papers and, indeed, Fermanagh local papers that are distributed to shops in the county, including the one Gallagher runs in Killybegs.
So let’s not be under any illusion that this was an ill-conceived effort to keep things under wraps. It was cheap and aimed solely at discommoding Donegal’s local media.
As they bid for a first ever Ulster title against a recently rampant Donegal, you’d think Fermanagh would have much more pressing matters at hand.
Of course, Gallagher was in charge of Donegal up to last year.
Perhaps he is irked by criticism he received during his tenure from the county’s media.
His three years in charge of Donegal, in a time of deep transition, was pretty decent resultswise – last year’s disastrous Championship campaign excluded.
Donegal stayed in Division One, something they couldn’t manage this year.
Indeed, but for a change in policy on the application of injury time in 2016, they might have held out against Tyrone in the Ulster final before being mugged in the 75th minute.
When he stepped down last year, despite having the option of another season, he insisted that criticism directed at him played no part in his decision.
And we don’t know either if it’s influenced the stance taken against the Donegal media.
But surely any policy that Fermanagh adopt in the run up to this game should come with only one proviso – does it give us a better chance of beating Donegal?
When have you ever heard a press ban being feted as a significant factor – or even an insignificant one – from a victorious dressing room?