Barry remains at Meath helm as executive back down

EAMONN Barry is to continue as Meath football manager for the coming year after the County Board Executive dramatically withdrew their demand to have him replaced at a meeting of the clubs in Navan last night.

It followed an eleventh-hour reconciliation, instigated by Barry himself, which resulted in a five-hour meeting yesterday. It ended with the Executive reiterating their full support for him as 'the duly elected and appointed' team manager.

At a press conference afterwards, Fintan Ginnity said the last ten days had been 'the worst' in his life, because of the effect it was having on Meath football. On-going last week were upset by media developments, but Eamonn Barry 'broke the ice' when he contacted him at 10pm on Sunday.

Barry, who conceded that it had been traumatic for him too, explained that he had 'very strong' views on the way a team manager should go about his business. Some of the expectations he had 'just were not forthcoming.'

"It more or less evolved into a reaction last Sunday week which brought this about. I am happy to say now that everything has been resolved. The only loser in this episode the longer it went on was Meath football.

"In the best interest of Meath football, we have set those aside and its forward and upward for Meath football in 2006, hopefully,'' he said.

Earlier, Fintan Ginnity read out a prepared statement which noted Barry's 'error of judgement' in relation to the appointment of Dessie Rogers and his brother Martin to his backroom team.

Formally addressing delegates, the manager announced that he told the Chairman it was time 'to bury the hatchet' and the matter reached a harmonious conclusion when the pair shook hands.

The statement included details of a 'binding framework' to govern the future relationship between Barry and the Management Committee. It pointed out that the Chairman and the Secretary were entitled to be present in Meath dressingrooms, as well as meetings, games, training sessions etc. and that Barry would restrict his dealings with the media to comments about team selection and performance.

The formation of the backroom team will need the advance approval of the Management Committee and neither Rogers nor Martin Barry will be part of it 'or associated in any way' with the management of the team.

Barry said that he regretted criticising the Executive and that his hopes of a happy resolution were not realised after he had publicly apologised on local and national radio.

"I am very happy that everything has been resolved and I am very proud to be manager of the Meath team,'' he added.

Ginnity revealed that he had been contacted by a lot of people within the county, expressing their concern about the controversy and its implications for Meath football. And, he singled out Management Committee Liam Keane (who is Secretary of the Association's Disputes Resolutions Authority), for the part he played in bringing the matter to a satisfactory conclusion.

"Hopefully, this will never happen again and I would hope that the Meath people will see that we are going forward with a united front and that we will get as much good publicity as the bad publicity we got in the last week.''

*Asked if Meath would consider appointing managers for longer than one year, the Chairman said this would be a matter for convention. However, he agreed that if a team was doing well 'it made no sense' to change the manager.