Cork row takes a turn for the worse

A WAR OF words erupted in Cork GAA circles last night, with the Cork County Board and its striking players blaming each other for the breakdown in negotiations to resolve the ongoing row in the county.

The board placed the blame for the breakdown squarely at the players’ door last night, saying that they had been led to believe “the lack of movement” from the players was responsible for Labour Relations Committee chief executive Kieran Mulvey’s withdrawal from the negotiations.

“I want to emphasise that we made ourselves available to meet Mr Mulvey and the players’ representatives yesterday, today, tomorrow, whenever they wished to meet in order to bring a productive conclusion to these negotiations,” said Cork County Board PRO Bob Ryan.

With Mulvey ruling out a return to Cork unless there was significant movement forthcoming from both sides, Ryan confirmed that the board “would not be going back to the table unless we were going to do business”.

“By indicating we were ready to go back to the table we were indicating that we were ready to do business,” Ryan said.

“We were led to believe that the reason Mr Mulvey is not returning is because of a lack of movement from the player representatives. This is a very worrying situation.”

However, a player source strongly contested that version of events yesterday.

“We’re very angry that the board has once again decided to bring confidential discussions into the public arena,” said the source.

“While we are not happy to be forced to respond in kind, we feel we must put on the record that Mr Mulvey told us it was the lack of movement on both sides that stopped him coming down. That’s what we were told earlier today.”

Stressing that he was putting forward the board’s official position, Ryan also emphasised that there were “a lot of untruths” in circulation about the appointment of Teddy Holland as Cork football manager last November.

“I want to confirm as fact only three people were shortlisted for the position by the appointment committee. I confirm absolutely Ted Holland was the only person offered the position.”

Regarding assertions to the contrary, Ryan challenged those making the assertions to produce other people who were offered the Cork manager’s job.

Ryan also stated that there was no agreement on team management and selectors arising out of the player strike in 2002.