'It's getting embarrassing now' - Duff slates FAI search for vacancy he’s no interest in

EMBARRASSING: Damien Duff has slammed the FAI’s delay in appointing a manager as embarrassing - stressing he’s no interest in the vacancy. Pic: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Damien Duff has slammed the FAI’s delay in appointing a manager as embarrassing - stressing he’s no interest in the vacancy.

Lee Carsley has been turned off the job by the limited package on offer, triggering speculation the likes of Duff could be sprung as a bolter.

The centurion has no intention of quitting the Shelbourne post he’s flourished in for the last two years but suggests, if he was on the long list of 12 candidates the FAI compiled within days of Stephen Kenny being released, it was purely a box-ticking gesture.

For the 13 weeks since, soundbites of an imminent appointment have dissolved into inaction.

The FAI have other pressing matters - Thursday’s looming appearance before the Public Accounts Committee yesterday necessitated a second board in five days - but the managerial episode is the one consuming most external interest.

Duff, who has never hidden his disdain for the inner workings of the FAI, isn’t immersed in the episode other than being unsurprised by the pickle the association finds itself when there’s two home friendlies on the horizon in five weeks’ time.

“It's getting embarrassing now, I won't lie to you,” he said when asked about the hot topic after Friday’s opening night 1-1 draw in Waterford.

“I'm not sure how long it can take to appoint a manager. Am I following it with interest? To be brutally honest, no.

“I follow the League of Ireland with ultra interest. I think the future of Irish football is in the League of Ireland if it's brought on leaps and bounds with help from anyone and everyone.

“It's the biggest best league in the world to me. I've lost touch with the Premier League, the Champions League, the senior job.

“Did somebody get the women's job? I don't even know. It's League of Ireland and that's all I'm looking at.” 

The two-time Premier League winner with Chelsea wouldn’t have had his head turned even if Marc Canham had laid out the red carpet. Not that the FAI’s director of football, their lead headhunter, reached out to discuss the prospect.

“Did I have any contact, eh,” he hesitates when asked about an approach, before joking “Have they not announced it yet?” He continued: “How do I word this? Maybe through someone through someone through someone asked me would I be interested in speaking to someone.

“Obviously, my answer was no. But how real it was, I don't know. I'm sure it was just a box ticker because it was never going to happen and it's never going to happen anytime soon.” Still the same stance if the contact had been direct?

“Absolutely. I love my job here. I'm surrounded by brilliant people, brilliant young players that buy into everything we do.

“These are people I trust, working in a brilliant environment, so I don't see why I'd leave that.

“But, like I said, I was nowhere near the running - just to be sure and clear and I know you get headlines.

“I was never in the running. There was nothing ever real or concrete. I love my job here.” 

In that context, he’s echoed the growing calls for Government funding to the domestic game, not without pleading for controllable matters like TV coverage to be broadened.

“It looks to me that the League of Ireland has absolutely grown ten fold or more in the last two or three years.

“How do you even tell that with the footfall in grounds. I think it's getting really big really quickly but it goes back to funding. Do we need funding? Absolutely yes. From the government? Absolutely yes.

“If they want to run the gig, absolutely run it, take it over, I don't know. It's there for everyone to see.

“For me, the future of the Irish football team is in the League of Ireland and in the academies in the League of Ireland here and for nobody to see that, I find really, really strange.

“Some of it is just common sense and backing up what you said.

“I think for weeks there they were saying the aesthetics and not full stadiums, the aesthetics of the stadiums.

“They had the President's Cup on there last week, a beautiful stadium, four stands full. And It wasn't on TV.

“It’s mind boggling, absolutely mind boggling to me.

“Maybe I'm just speaking nonsense but I just kept saying to Joey O’Brien 'how is this not on TV?' I believe it's never on TV. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

“It gets my emotions going. I'm probably more emotional here than I was out there tonight.

“The future of the league is in academies here, how do you get academies up and running and be serious with the stadiums, it's that. Who is going to bring it? I don't know. All I can bring is...well, not my money..but eh, coaching, energy, emotion and fighting for the league and I'll keep doing that because I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, I love it and I'll fight for it and fight anyone for it.”