Why football organisation should take centre stage

I read with interest the letters of Roughan MacNamara and Phelim Warren (Letters, Jun 25) about Roy Keane’s comments on Irish fans after the defeat by Spain in Euro 2012.

Like Roughan I, too, have played or managed teams involved in football all my life. I regularly attend home international matches and Airtricity League matches. My experience of grassroots opinion of Roy Keane differs completely from his.

Roy Keane clarified his comments in the aftermath of the Spain match. In my view he is asking fans to take a dispassionate view of performances to elicit a change in mentality, to review what happened and to make it better for the future. Remember, the FAI is an organisation that has presided over the withdrawal of seven clubs from its national league in six years and for whom its well paid chief executive seems to think that his behaviour in Sopot does not deserve any answering for.

Compare this mentality to organisations like the GAA or the IRFU. Would either organisation accept similar behaviour from Padraic Duffy or Philip Browne while representing their associations in the role of chief executive?

We can also put the Spanish game into perspective. I think the hard-working, honest, passionate, football-loving, decent Irish men and women can ask for a better performance than that against Spain and I am glad Roy Keane has no qualms about asking for it.

Is it too much to ask that in planning for the future of the game in the country we place standards of football and football organisation at the centre of the equation and work from there?

Ryan McCarthy

Castlemartyr

Co Cork