rumour going around this morning suggests Mick got sacked last Friday but it will not be announced until the FAI have agreed a severance deal.
i think it's unlikely that mick will be sacked. he'll probably offer to resign and the f.a.i. will accept. that way everybody saves face. the general consensus of sunday's papers is that he's meeting the board today to thrash out his severence package. onwards and upwards
The Indo this morning says that if the FAI "get dirty", then so will Mick.......whatever that means. Maybe he's going to tell the world that Damien Duff is Brendan Menton's love child. The consensus seems to be that Mick will not be in charge for the trip to Greece.
Things could get silly if they don't agree on a deal soon. We all know how stubborn Mick is and how tight arsed the FAI are so it could well drag on, and as usual Irish football and its supporters will suffer because of it. After the Sky deal, qualifying for the world cup and a full house for virtually every home game at Landsdowne the FAI could hardly be short of cash, could they?
in fairness to the fai, they wouldn't have that much money to play with. the senior team is the only squad to actually generate a profit. the numerous underage and womens teams cost a lot to run and generate nothing in return. i can only imagine how much it costs to send a squad (including non-playing staff) abroad for an tournament lasting up to two weeks. in addition they have a multitude of staff; coaches, managers, trainers, admin, the list goes on. the eircom park debacle would have emptied the coffers of a few million. as for lansdowne road being packed out for every home match, the fai are tenants so they would have to pay a seizable fee to the IRFU. i'm not going to give them credit for the €10.99 they invest in the eircom league. and finally, while i don't approve of their deal with sky, i think it's fair to say that the money from RTE never amounted to much.
looks like it's real. the (Cork) Examiner is now reporting that it's a done deal. see excerpt below. ---It is highly unlikely the FAI will be able to appoint a new manager in time to take charge of the team against Greece. It is much more likely that Don Givens, manager of Ireland’s U21 team, will be asked to fill the post on a temporary basis, probably with the help of Ireland’s goal keeping coach Pat Bonner.---- farewell Mick, you did a good job.
the deal has been done according to some reports this morning. hopefully that's true as a long drawn out stand off would have been a nightmare. And John Toshack is the bookies favourite to take the hotseat. Don't know much about him as he's spent most of his management career in Spain. I'd prefer Joe Kinnear myself, although John Aldridge is an interesting candidate. Is he still with Tranmere?