Football manager controversy

Date Published: {J}

THE process surrounding the appointment of the new Galway senior football manager Tomás Ó Flatharta has caused widespread disquiet and anger among the grassroots of the GAA in the county.

Club delegates were given just four hours notice to attend a hastily convened meeting in Claregalway last Thursday night to ratify the Kerryman as Joe Kernan’s successor.

The former Westmeath manager and former Kerry minor player, Ó Flatharta, was ratified on a vote of 33-6 after a heated debate among the delegates.

It emerged on Thursday that Ó Flathara was the preferred candidate of the five-man selection sub-committee. Other contenders Galway minor manager, Gerry Fahy, and Annaghdown manager Matt Duggan were informed in the afternoon that they were not successful.

Speculation was then rife that former All-Ireland winning selector with John O’Mahony, Pete Warren, would land the job and he had already received messages of congratulations from supporters before he was informed he was not the chosen candidate. “It’s very embarrassing and should not have happened. It was handled badly,” said one Football Board executive member.

At the controversial meeting, St Michael’s club delegate Tommy Kelly was among the strongest objectors to the process. Kelly stressed that he had no issue with Ó Flatharta or the decision of the selection committee, but was angry with the undemocratic nature of the appointment process. Kelly saw no reason why the delegates weren’t given due notice to get a mandate from clubs before voting.

But under-fire football board chairman John Joe Holleran told Sentinel Sport there was nothing unusual about giving delegates four hours notice to attend the meeting, describing criticism to the contrary as an “agenda”.

Holleran said the current arrangement, whereby a selection committee picks the manager, was first introduced in Galway 13 seasons ago and every other county followed Galway’s lead since then. This process prevented “canvassing” for candidates in the lead-up to meetings, he said.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.