John Fallon: Stephen Kenny has future in his hands but board will take considered view
Ireland manager Stephen Kenny. Picture:Â INPHO/Ryan Byrne
When it comes to assessing progress in football, it worth recalling John Delaney’s definition of success in managing the debt he presided over.
Twice the former chief executive brokered haircuts on the loans that crippled the game for a decade and twice he indulged the acclaim bestowed on him by his band of loyal officers, in particular the gallery at AGMs.
Debts never formed part of the grandiose plans Delaney boasted about to fund their €74m portion of the Lansdowne Road development costs. “We could write a cheque in the morning for that,” he declared.
Instead, by the time of his infamous exit in 2019, almost €30m of a €50m loan was outstanding after repayments of €35m and those write-offs totalling €15m. The stadium loan won’t be cleared until 2040.
It’s easy to attain minor victories in war when gunfire should have been avoided.
A broad, cumulative approach will be adopted when the 12-person FAI board discuss a new contract for Stephen Kenny next month.
No decision on the manager’s future has been made.
The sole mention of Kenny’s standing among directors was confined to a two-minute discussion to confirm the matter would be addressed once the World Cup campaign ends in November.
Progress is the key criteria but progress from what point?
Does the starting line begin from the manager’s elevation in April 2020 to include eight winless games or, as has been suggested, upon the shocking home loss against Luxembourg seven months ago?
It might have felt like ground zero that night at Aviva Stadium but nobody said it was day zero.
The return trip to Luxembourg on November 14 will complete 20 matches at the helm for Kenny. His record from the 18 so far is three wins, eight defeats and seven draws. The win ratio, boosted by two recent wins over Azerbaijan and Qatar, equates to 16.6%.
That period includes the European Championship playoffs as well as Uefa Nations League and World Cup campaigns.
Under his current duration, Kenny is contracted to manage the side in the two March friendlies and the first four of the Uefa Nations League matches just weeks before it expires in July.
The FAI could decide to wait until that juncture before making a decision but that is undesirable for the purposes of continuity. Any delay would indicate doubts linger.
That the contract lapses at a farcical stage, midway through a campaign, was a legacy the new board inherited from their predecessors.
Something they hadn’t expected either midstream in the current World Cup series was Kenny’s public contortions.
Even he himself last year set an ambition to qualify for the 2022 showpiece, so to hear him reclassify the campaign as a trial period after a woeful start was news to the directors.
Had such a strategic vision been sought, it would have warranted a debate at boardroom level.
No plan of that sort was broached, creating an example of misalignment the FAI hoped had perished in the handover from the old regime.
The success of the senior team is too vital of an apparatus to the rest of the organisation’s wellbeing for the white flag on qualification to be raised.
A minimum target of competing for a top-two place,
regardless of competition, wasn’t relinquished in the blueprint of the new FAI.
As confirmed last month by chief executive Jonathan Hill, the sequence of events will entail a report of the campaign being issued to the board.
That is likely to come from Hill, with the input of high performance director Ruud Dokter and chairman of the high performance/international committee, Packie Bonner, also blended in.
Bonner is one of those dozen directors and being honed in on as a potential kingmaker in the manager’s status.
Although that would be overstating his remit, it took quite a bit of convincing for the man sacked by Delaney in 2010 from his technical director’s role to return in May. Talk-shops are not his thing.
He is one of six independent directors on a board equally split with those elected through football channels.
The latter six were eight up until two heads were sacrificed in return for the €35m government bailout in January 2020.
All but one of the half dozen, Tom Browne from the schoolboys/girls sector, were signatories to a statement in August 2020 denying their express acceptance of that reform before chairman Roy Barrett signed the rescue deal.
It represented a difficult start for the interim board of newcomers and only served to embolden those mandated by their respective constituencies to oversee Irish football.
They possess their opinions and those have to be heard and heeded for the FAI’s promise of modernisation to be trusted.
Kenny has control of his destiny heading into the double-header against Portugal and Luxembourg. Six points will salvage third place from the group but three in the Grand Duchy will salvage his job.
Last week he had his bosses miffed again by targeting a top table finish in next year’s Nations League without being contracted to last the distance. It panged of a man either high on confidence or one applying the pressure to his employers.
Theirs will be the next move of significance and it will be undertaken devoid of the short-termism he detests.
Sweet business by Visionary member Eoin Kellett
It was good to see Eoin Kellett of Cadbury centre stage in Irish football this week two years after his involvement with the Visionary Group.
The chief executive of Mondelez Ireland was on Monday perched on a stool at the Castleknock Hotel announcing his company’s associate sponsorship of the Ireland women’s national team.
Unlike last month’s unveiling of Sky Ireland as primary sponsor, when JD Buckley spoke at length to the media, Kellett’s tidings were restricted to a few routine questions from the FAI.
As someone who put his name to the aspirational masterplan of a team led by Niall Quinn, it would be interesting to hear what he makes of progress.
Quinn, when interim deputy CEO last year, denied that he was part of a Visionary Group takeover.
He, along with interim CEO Gary Owens, departed the FAI last year but the third component of the Visionary Trinity, Roy Barrett, came through a fiery period to remain at independent chairman and sat alongside Kellett at the sponsorship event.
Women’s football was central to the Visionary charter but a key proposal in their document of introducing a board member dedicated to the sector hasn’t featured in the real world of FAI governance.
After the bloodbath caused by the last boardroom reshuffle, that progressive move could be a while away.
When Galway nearly became Newcastle
Last week’s Saudi takeover of Newcastle United brought to mind Ireland’s Arabian summer alliance in 2018.
Ghutrahs might have become the headwear of choice around Galway had their League of Ireland club clinched a deal for new ownership. An overwhelming 86% of United’s members in attendance at a special meeting endorsed the bid from the Middle-East to take a 75% controlling stake.
That followed a visit by the club’s delegation to Riyadh and a detailed information pack packed with ambitious plans, smoothed by an initial €500,000 investment.
For two months, giddiness was in the air at the prospect of Galway outspending their rivals to not only recapture past glories like the 1991 FAI Cup but exceed them with league titles.
Suspicions, however, grew when the lines of global communication went cold and the dalliance disappeared into the labyrinth of false dawns LOI fans have suffered. It wasn’t Newcastle’s new benefactor, state-sponsored Public Investment Fund, that Galway were dealing with, rather two directors from the country involved in a sports agency.
Reality soon dawned and the club has concentrated its efforts on local backers, such as the loyal Comer Brothers.
Their first measure of success since that Saudi episode could be imminent if John Caulfield side’s navigate next month’s play-offs into the Premier Division.
