Finance not limiting Sligo manager hunt

Sligo secretary Gerry O’Connor believes a lack of interest in the race to succeed Kevin Walsh as football boss is not linked to the financial constraints set to be imposed on the county as it tackles a €1.5m debt.

Nominations for the position closed last Friday and O’Connor, part of the five-strong committee tasked with finding the new manager, revealed less than five people were put forward for the job.

“We didn’t get a whole pile of nominations,” he admitted. “There is to be a meeting this week or next to discuss those nominated. Two of the committee were out and about sounding out people to see if they were interested last week, but there was no expressions of interest.”

Over four months have elapsed since Walsh stepped down, but officials were prohibited from finding a replacement until a financial plan for 2014 was drawn up to correct the massive financial problems.

O’Connor explained: “The management is only one part of the jigsaw. It is the entourage that comes with him that puts up the costs enormously. What Croke Park asked us to do and what we wanted to do was to agree a budget on what was doable. For instance, a lot of the services that we would have bought in the past can now be provided by the Connacht GAA centre of excellence, still at a cost, but a lot less that we would have been previously paying.

“The respective candidates would be made aware that there will be constraints on what can be spent. The way we have looked at it is that we can provide the same or better services to the players at a lot less of a cost. We have assured the players that this won’t be a token backroom team just to get us through the year. The players are still competitive and we are still going to provide them with everything necessary for them to realise their potential. ”

Though an outside manager would come at a greater cost to the County Board, O’Connor said the search of the committee was not confined to the Yeats County.

“We are back collective training on November 15 and that is the date we have in our head for an appointment. We agreed if the right man was a fair bit away, we would save somewhere else. We wouldn’t let that deter us.”