Apparently FAI General Secretary Brendan Menton has resigned as a result of the Saipan report published today.
Am watching the report on RTE right now. The outside consultants report on the preparation for teh World Cup was damning....they basically stated that the FAI was run by amateurs, didn't provide their players or coaches with any framework for success, and showed that they've constantly ignored other outside group's reccomendations for years. The FAI have teh chance to set a lot of things right between appoiuntment of a new general secretary and manager. Let's hope they do one thing right....
http://www.ireland.com/sports/soccer/2002/1112/int7.htm Wow, talk about fallout from Roy's tantrums before the World Cup. First, McCarthy, now Menton. Who's next? The kit boy?
I fear for Mick Byrnes futurue, now that would truly be a sad day. To be fair, this isn't just about Saipan, far from it, it's about everything before and after it. Not how they man managed Roy Keane, but the preperations, facilities and car park training pitches they had out there.
Slash refers to the reports findings re. "facilities and car park training pitches they had out there". If you read the report, which clearly you haven't, you will see that it states that the facilities and training pitch in Saipan had no negative effect on the team's world cup preparations or performance which makes a mockery of the horsesh1t that Keane went on with about the team not preparing properly. The report's criticism about Saipan solely concern the failure of the FAI to have properly qualified people on the ground out there to deal with Keane's tantrums.
I don't know what spin RTE news has put on the report but no doubt the pro-Keane lobby in that organisation will choose to ignore the fact that the report has found that the the facilities and training pitch in Saipan did not negatively impact on the team's world cup preparations or performance.
From what I saw, they said the FAI failed to tell Keane what was said at the Quinn charity match, that Saipan was only a resting period and not an all out training camp. They also said the preparation, facilities and profressionalism on the part of the FAI was a joke, but didn't really mention the actual Keane bust up, at least from what I saw.
I've just finished reading Quinn's autobiography, and he seems to me to be relatively equi-distant between Keane and McCarthy. However, he really lays the boot into the FAI. He includes a transcript of a post-Saipan press conference with McCarthy and Menton, and if it wasn't quoted verbatim, you'd swear it was a Monty Python routine. Menton is every inch the bumbling civil servant with the PR savvy of a dead horse. The FAI was almost totally ineffective during a stand off between ITS manager, ITS captain and which was tearing apart ITS national team. The fact that the attempted reconciliation was almost brokered by RTE rather than the FAI speaks volumes. Lets hope that they avoid the usual Irish technique of appointing the man who has been there longest or the man who has the most mates in the local Fianna Fail cumann. This is a big, high profile job. Surely the pay and candidates should reflect that.
Not according to this report on setanta http://www.setanta.com/story.jsp?story=WCContent;id-44820 although they have been ridicliously pro Keane since the world cup. Is there a link to the actual contents of the report?
You can find the actual PDF report on WWW.FAI.IE You have to go through a couple of links on the main page but you can download the PDF presentation... I printed it off this morning and had a read. I actually think it seems a fair representation of what happened going by the different view of the parties. FAI are a shambles...it does not hold back on this fact. Roy views on FAIs inability to organise anything were supported and states that the FAI and supporting teams had let this go on far too long....maybe a dig at Mick here in his representation of the players requirements....Mick did not get the Economy Seat change.... However, the issues with the pitch, skips etc did not affect Irelands performance...but 'arguably' was the last straw that meant we lost our captain/best player and perhaps underachieved in the comp........ Well maybe we will look back in 2006 and say thank god Roy Keane blew up....there was an independent review called...and the FAI got their act together... or maybe we shall asking why the FAI have shown such an inability to change......... We shall see......I might apply for one of the new posts the FAI are trying to recruit for! closey p.s They carried out a formal interview with Roy Keane for 90min as part of this....
They interviewed everyone remotely involved though, so it's not like they put any extra emphasis on getting Keane's opinion.
Nothing like spending a wee fortune on what Joe Ordinary would have told you in casual conversation over a pint of plain! Flipping heck, its not even worthy of being a case study for Junior Cert Business students! Thankfully we had Our Roy to point out the bleeding obvious on the eve of the World Cup Finals and then storm off in a huff when everyone else just replied "Well figured out, Einstein!" Seriously, I have accepted from Day 1 (i.e. the Irish Times interview) that he was completely right in his criticisms. However, lets face it - his motivation had little to do with championing a reformation in Irish soccer and a lot to do with his own state-of-mind in Saipan - a fact some media heads seemed to forget today when speaking of this report vindicating him. Duck, here comes some flying bacon...