Loughnane blast: Clare chairman’s position ‘utterly untenable’

Further divisions in Clare GAA emerged yesterday with All-Ireland winning manager Ger Loughnane labelling the position of Clare GAA chairman Michael McDonagh "utterly untenable".

Loughnane didn’t discount the possibility of chairing a review committee, which would look at hurling and broader GAA issues in Clare. However, he insisted a review committee would need clear guarantees that their suggestions would be acted upon.

Loughnane spoke to the Clare Champion on foot of Brian Lohan’s suggestion that the Feakle man head up a review committee which would examine what Loughnane has termed Clare’s hurling “crisis.” He backed Lohan’s review suggestion but insisted that any recommendations would have to be taken up.

“It can only be reviewed by people who have the interests of Clare hurling at heart and people who are competent to do it. But also, they will only do it, I’d imagine, under a guarantee their recommendations will be acted upon. Do you think that the present chairman or the present secretary (Pat Fitzgerald) will take on something that is unpalatable to them? I doubt it very much.

“There is no point in this just being a stop gap measure or a way of creating a bit of time so that everything will settle down. Nobody wants that to happen,” he replied when asked if he would chair the committee himself.

Loughnane also criticised the performance of county board chairman Michael McDonagh in recent weeks. Following Clare’s defeat to Cork, McDonagh publicly stated that the position of Clare hurling manager Davy Fitzgerald was not in question.

“That is where the real problem is. I think the chairman’s position, by his actions, is completely and utterly untenable. If we want to have a future we need to look at the whole set-up and that includes officers in the county board. Have we the right officers to pursue the right agenda for the future?,” Loughnane queried.

He is adamant that with McDonagh seeking to represent Fianna Fáil in the next general election, it would be too difficult to concentrate fully on pressing Clare GAA concerns. The Clare Fianna Fáil selection convention will he held this evening in Ennis.

“The chairman, to me anyway, has no idea of what needs to be done. He’s just pursuing a personal agenda aimed at himself and not at the good of hurling in Clare. That is the impression I get from everything I hear from him. His interest is in his own popularity. He is pursuing a political career and all of his utterances and actions are aiming to improve his status in that area. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the future of Clare hurling. It’s just a PR exercise that is so badly carried out that it’s an insult to people’s intelligence that he thinks he is getting away with it,” Loughnane blasted.

However, McDonagh denied this suggestion, claiming Loughnane is setting out to derail his political ambitions. He issued a short statement through Dunphy PR saying: “Comments I have made in my remit as chairman of the county board, during the past fortnight and throughout my tenure, have always been made in the best interests of Clare GAA and in my capacity as chairman only. The suggestion any comments I have made are self-serving or politically motivated are wrong and appear to me to be intentionally misleading and intended to damage my candidacy in Friday’s Fianna Fáil selection convention,” the board chairman said.

“In politics as in life, it is nearly as important to have the right people against you, as to have the right people backing you,” he commented.

Lougnane says a review should examine all aspects of Clare hurling, including under age structures, the running of the county board and not merely the performance of the senior hurling team. He added: “Obviously the U21 is the big success story. Why are more of those people, who are part of that, not given an input into the future of Clare hurling? Why are they being sidelined? Why are we promoting people at U14 and U15 who have no knowledge whatsoever or even no background in hurling? Still, they are being promoted at under age level. What’s going on is absolutely crazy. It’s only in seven or eight years time that we’ll see the results of this. We could be in a similar situation to Cork where we’ll have no success at under age level if this is not reviewed now.”