Vincent Hogan summarises the issue in the Irish Independent today. The Tribune had a pretty strong article yesterday too.
Shame on them for their treatment of the legendary Sarsfields and Faythe Harriers stalwart.
Vincent Hogan: IABA fall-out threatening to crush olympic dreams
Monday April 26 2010
Somewhere in a filing cabinet on Dublin’s South Circular Road rests a document worth €700,000. It’s been gathering dust for two months now, which seems rather odd given its importance to so many people. That document is amateur boxing’s submission to the Irish Sports Council for High Performance funding.
As May approaches, the fact that this ‘Performance Planning’ budget has yet to be accessed will, presumably, concentrate minds at tonight’s IABA board meeting in the National Stadium. That and the extraordinarily tense relationship that now exists between the board and its paymasters, the ISC.
I understand that a statement will be issued after tonight’s meeting, which is to be welcomed.
remarkable
Because the most remarkable thing about this past week has not, simply, been the IABA’s apparent adoption of a code of ‘omerta’ towards the media’s interest in this story, but their lack of response even to the Sports Council letter refusing to fund the new salaries of Don Stewart and Dominic O’Rourke.
I know, I know, this probably isn’t your thing. Outside of an Olympics, tell your friends you’re writing a column on amateur boxing and it’s as if their brains turn to bits of Tupperware. It’s clear they can think of few less captivating media topics, outside maybe another TV interview with Louis Walsh, or Rosanna Davison.
Irish interest in amateur boxing seems to come strictly in four-yearly cycles. Beyond that? You may as well try selling sand to Dubai.
But this story should command your attention because, frankly, it’s not good enough that we demand world-class performances from our boxers at every Olympiad, yet disregard the layers of expertise and devotion required to deliver them to that stage.
Remember, Ken Egan went to Beijing anonymous as a bell-hop to most of you, yet came home feted like someone straight out of a Hollywood movie.
The programme that made Egan’s journey possible is now imperilled. Not because of any fall-off in performance since China. On the contrary, boxing’s High Performance Programme is the model that other sports desperately try to imitate. It remains nothing short of a revelation.
The threat comes from the IABA’s relationship with that programme.
That relationship has never been entirely harmonious, but the recent decision to appoint the association’s own president, O’Rourke, as High Performance Director all but nudges it towards meltdown.
Now, the last thing this column wishes to do is disparage either O’Rourke or Stewart. Having met both men, I can confirm that neither reminded me of Jack Nicholson peering through the gash in a splintered door.
A couple of months back, I was beckoned to the Stadium to discuss a column I’d just written about Katie Taylor. The invitation came from Stewart though, on arrival, I found three people sitting around the table, O’Rourke included.
Now, I’m still not sure what the point of the meeting was. They hadn’t liked the column, of course. But, given there were no factual errors, it really amounted to an argument of perception. And, after an hour of meandering dialogue, my perception still ran as a polar opposite to theirs.
So we agreed to disagree and parted relatively amicably.
Little did I know then that I was bidding good night to the future CEO of the association or, even more startlingly, the future Director of High Performance.
Nor, indeed, that the Sports Council’s unease with the recruitment process used for both appointments would be highlighted by that withdrawal of funding before either decision was even confirmed.
One of the odd little quirks of O’Rourke’s appointment particularly was that he went for the job whilst still president of the board that would make the decision. Did this not constitute some kind of conflict of interest? And, by not resigning as president beforehand, was Dominic essentially hedging his bets?
Now this isn’t meant to sound like a sermon from the mount, but we really should be monitoring this story rather carefully. Because, if boxing’s High Performance somehow manages to go belly-up, we can pretty much forget about medals at the London Olympics.
Billy Walsh has been running that programme since Beijing and been doing it quite brilliantly. The role is highly technical and one that he was carefully tutored in by Gary Keegan, director of High Performance up to and including those Games. Yep, the same Keegan overlooked by the IABA when choosing an Olympic team manager for Beijing and, hence, scandalously deprived accreditation.
This is an old sore, yet one that I suspect must be reopened endlessly, if only to offer historical perspective to the current story.
Walsh, incidentally, maintains a dignified silence as the trouble heightens. If he feels betrayed, it seems clear that that feeling isn’t to be decanted for public consumption.
The boxers keep their counsel too, if for a slightly different reason. O’Rourke is now, technically, their boss, so how can they openly criticise the appointment of a man who will plan their lives for the foreseeable future?
Meanwhile, the submission for funding sits in a drawer, awaiting an IABA signature. And the Irish Sports Council wonders if and when they will hear from the chaps on the South Circular Road.
Next year is the IABA’s centenary. While they plan to honour the past, perhaps they might care to safeguard the future. It’s good to talk.
