Breaking: Galway close in on capture of Éamonn Fitzmaurice as new football manager

All-Ireland winning Kerry player and manager had little intention of returning to the inter-county fold. Then Galway chair Paul Bellew came calling with an intriguing proposal.

MAROON MAN? Galway believe they are close to an agreement to attract All-Ireland winning Kerry boss Éamonn Fitzmaurice in as manager to replace Padraic Joyce. Pic: Tom Maher, Inpho

All-Ireland-winning Kerry player and manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice is in line for a sensational return to inter-county management in 2027 with Galway.

Fitzmaurice stepped down as manager of the Kingdom in 2018 and hasn’t managed at inter-county level since. However it emerged Tuesday night that the Finuge man is in advanced talks with Galway GAA to take over the manager’s position vacated by Pádraic Joyce earlier this month.

It's been established that Fitzmaurice has engaged positively with Galway chairman Paul Bellew in recent weeks and is now considered the No. 1 choice of Galway chiefs to lead the county into 2027 and a search for a first All-Ireland football title in 26 years.

In many respects, it is a remarkable about-turn from Fitzmaurice who has continued to manage successfully at club level, but offered no indication that he was willing to step back into the intense world of inter-county management after his six seasons at the helm with his native Kerry.

He was mentioned in the initial scattergun of names in the wake of Joyce’s departure from Galway but was easily dismissed on the basis that Fitzmaurice was no longer interested in the inter-county fast lane.

GAME CHANGER: Jim Gavin and Éamonn Fitzmaurice were two of the key FRC architects who helped restore Gaelic football to its former glories. Pic: Daire Brennan/Sportsfile

He led the Kingdom to an All-Ireland title in 2014 but in other years up to 2016, ran into the winning machine that was Jim Gavin’s Dublin. He stepped down from the role after failing to reach the knockout phase of the championship in 2018, believing he had become an impediment to progress.

“I also think by taking me out of the equation, it can remove some of the over-the-top negativity that was coming at the team, which I feel was unfair,” he said in August 2018. With Jack O'Connor due to step down after the 2027 campaign, Fitzmaurice remained one of the few viable candidates to step up again.

Since 2018, he has been involved in several successful campaigns across school and club. PS Chorcha Dhuibhne, where Fitzmaurice is principal, won a Hogan Cup under his guidance in 2014, and in Fossa, he guided the club to an All-Ireland Club JFC title in Croke Park after four seasons at the helm. 

Only last month, he was back involved as coach with his native Finuge, as they annexed a Kerry JFC title, beating Knocknagoshel in the final.

The decision to opt back into the fold can’t have been easy, with Fitzmaurice often indicating he was loathe to coach against his native county with any team. He has also been involved in the formative sporting years of his two children Rian (10) and Faye (8).

Two key factors may have changed his perspective – firstly, Fitzmaurice would only have returned with a county like Galway and a project capable of going all the way to Sam Maguire. Plus, at least Galway and Kerry are in different provinces. Nevertheless, a Galway-Kerry All-Ireland final is something the 49-year-old daren’t even think about – for the time being at least.

Fitzmaurice gave much of his late teenage years and adult life to Kerry football. As a player, he won three All-Irelands and six Munster titles and was involved either as a player, selector or manager with the county from 1994 to 2018 – a remarkable 25 years from playing minor to a selector with Jack O’Connor, to the Under 21 manager to taking over as senior manager in 2012.

WINNER: Éamonn Fitzmaurice guided Fossa to an All-Ireland Club JFC title during his time with the club. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

How Fitzmaurice will balance his school principal duties and the two and a half hour twice-weekly trips to Loughgeorge in Galway will be interesting. He has never lost the taste for the dressing room, and his razor sharp insights and tactical nous might be a massive coup for Galway, but the readers of his Irish Examiner columns and viewers of RTÉ’s GAA match commentaries will be the poorer for his departure – if the Galway appointment is confirmed.

With Joyce’s departure, local thinking was that the Galway executive would stay relatively local for his successor, with the likes of Kevin O’Brien and Kevin Johnson mentioned. Non-Galway possibilities ranged wide, from Donegal down to Kerry, but once Galway chairman Paul Bellew sat down with Fitzmaurice, he immediately saw the attraction of luring the Kerry man.

His case was based on Galway still being primed to take the final step, and requiring that extra sprinkle of footballing experience to take them to a first All-Ireland since 2001, when they defeated a Meath side that had eviscerated Fitzmaurice and Kerry in the semi-final.

Bellew and Fitzmaurice have met more than once, evidently, and the fact that he was prepared to do so and entertain the possibility of a return to inter-county is a reliable indicator that Fitzmaurice believes Galway can end their 26-year wait for an All-Ireland. He wouldn't return for anything less.

To do so, they will need to better utilise the raft of progressive changes to Gaelic football that Fitzmaurice himself played a central role in under the FRC chairmanship of Jim Gavin. 

That group stood down after their initiatives were almost universally embraced by the game’s governing authority at a special Congress in 2024.