Ex English FA Commercial Director 

The paragraphs about driving revenue and sports companies he worked for previously aren't really relevant. 

He's the new chief executive! We need to know what his girlfriend looks like, who his father was, can he sing Republican ballads badly and most importantly, can he get me tickets.

Fastest finger getting an injunction.

Confirmed

This is the fella John Delaney wanted in.

? 
 

I presume its the same fella and someone got his name wrong. Jonathan Hall worked for the FA and JD wanted him in as his stooge replacement.

At least he is willing to trek the Irish Sea after 6 months 

This appointment is already stinking to high hell and maybe he has Kenny to deflect attention but this is extremely concerning 

One press conference since November when he was telling everyone we would be hosting the Euros 

Out of curiosity how many press conferences has the English CEO done in the last 12 Months ? 

Totally agree. It should be a sackable offence not to be based in Ireland full time. My own company appointed an Englishman as CEO during pandemic. He moved over immediately Lockdown 1 last year was eased. This was despite he being sitting in a house or apartment in Dublin on his own working remotely as office was still closed. 

Been working all weekend and had that EGM this morning / afternoon. Will be working on some comms tomorrow to issue to members when finalised. We are extremely disappointed at how the process was handled in terms of the lack of consultation. Supporters made a statement at the EGM today and both reps spoke and expressed that disappointment.  

It's an up Hill one 

It is quite an achievement to make relations worse than had been previously. Worrying times 

Missed this. I’m not sure. I should have pointed out that he hasn’t answered questions other than the press conference since beginning in the role. Just searched English FA CEO in google and see he was on SSN three weeks ago. Not sure the point of the question but I imagine there’s been a hell of a lot more public appearances than. Hill 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12240292/fa-chief-executive-mark-bullingham-calls-on-social-media-to-introduce-identification" rel="nofollow - https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12240292/fa-chief-executive-mark-bullingham-calls-on-social-media-to-introduce-identification

That link isn't working and browsing the international section I can't find it either.

I believe Hill went with the Ireland team to Serbia etc and then cut his trip short and returned to London. Still failing to deal with the Keane situation too.

The point I was trying to make was that I dont really think it matters if he's not seen or heard from 6 months at a time, public appears are not what a CEO is there for. I know he's moving over from London this month. Considering the sh*t shows he's inherited id imagine he's snowed under.

This is an Association in tens of millions of debt and they are free to get on with business with no questions to answer and unaccountable to public representatives and the general public who are funding them? I would agree if they were wheeling out spokespeople to tackle the, as you say, sh*t show he has inherited but they’re not. The buck stops with him and the Board and to be honest I’m not so sure how appropriate it is for a non executive Chairman in Roy Barrett to be answering questions as he did last week. He simply doesn’t have the day to day experience in house.

In any case; if everything else was going well and he was making a good impression; the public appearances wouldn’t be a concern. But that is not the case.

But going back to my original point he’s only in the job a few months and try to get a grasp of the sh*t show he’s trying to get back in order . That’s not going to happen over night you’d have to agree. I agree he’s accountable there no point him answering any questions unless he has a full grasp of what’s wrong and how he can fix this 

Link back working and now the FAI wish everyone a happy Easter and a hush hush 

Look I agree with that but he should be on top of things after a couple of months, Don’t mind 6 months. 

He was brought in on the basis he was going to pull in sponsors. Where are they?

He has retained the same senior management that preserved John Delaney. Why hasn’t he shaken that up?

He hasn’t bothered moving to Ireland yet the FAI are at pains to stake there is an open door policy with him  Obviously they mean that virtually but who on earth cold calls the CEO to query an employment matter

He has stated he thinks the Euros will be played here.. What world is he living in? And on that basis how much money is being wasted recruiting for this fantasy?

Any word on the ‘investigation’ in to a video being shown to the team? Why was the manager undermined in such a manner?

His opening 6 months has been nothing short of shambolic and now the PFAI, SIPTU and YBIG are coming out criticising him. A bad bad appointment.

Doesnt sound like he has too much time for Kenny

http://twitter.com/BernardOToole/status/1436007235612729353" rel="nofollow - http://twitter.com/BernardOToole/status/1436007235612729353

Bit early for him to be sticking his colours to the mast.

If he said he will be kept and we do shockingly over next games he will look like an idiot.

He is smart to say nothing at this juncture - given that the next set of games are likely to be the decider.

Sounds more like he doesn't have time for the interviewer. They have their process & he won't be drawn into giving a soundbite, one way or the other, before that process happens.

Yeah you're probably right in that sense.

Maybe Im just not used to hearing an FAI CEO speaking some sense and logic.

The failure to beat Azerbaijan at home, on top of all the other poor performances in the last year including against Serbia this week, may have done terminal damage, though you would think if he won the last two away qualifiers they would probably grudgingly keep him on for the first few Nations League games at least.

It's a bit optimistic to expect him to nail his colours to the mast. What if we were to lose to Azerbaijan next month?

business man/politicians answer. if he had courage he'd be supporting Kenny and handing him a 2024 contract. Spineless.

People will hear what they want to hear, so these comments come as no surprise.

Not even remotely spineless.  It’s professional.  It’s been so long since anyone has acted that way in the FAI that we don’t even know what it looks like.  In the good old days we’d extend a contract when we are four points behind Luxembourg.  We’d probably give Robbie a bonus as well.  All he is doing is what you should expect him to: Evaluate SK’s performance at or near the end of his contract based on results and progress in developing a team for the future.  

He is a useless mouthpiece. The Board are already disgusted they appointed him.

That said, given our winless record and fact Kenny will have had 20 games by the end of the campaign, if we were still to be winless then there probably is a question to be asked and it’s therefore a smarter business decision to wait until then. So as a football fan believing in Kenny, his backing for the manager would be great but from a business sense Hill said absolutely the right thing. God knows how JD would have answered the sort of questioning if I’m a similar situation, actually we know how….He Wouldn’t Have Taking The Question!!!!

Would agree with this. 

Its refreshing to have a CEO who just answers like a CEO should. As in bland sh*te !

Who wants the dreaded vote of confidence?  You're gone a few weeks later.

Kenny should be kept on his toes like the players.  Another defeat to a minnow and he should be sacked.

This 2024 team building thing is like Stan's 4 year plan. You cant expect to be given a free pass to write off a campaign and get crap results losing to lesser opposition.  A certain minimum standard is still expected despite any rebuild.

100% sense 

Id hold SKs ability as a coach and manager in much greater regard to that of Stans. And by that i mean, he actually has a plan. SK also has a much stronger backroom it seems. 

I know Kenny hasnt operated at the highest level prior to this gig but Stan came out of nowhere as assistant at Walsall. Laughable really. 

Yep, the Great Leader would always go for some crazy publicity stunt e.g. renewing the contract of a manager with a lot of questions hanging over them, sacking a manager at short notice etc. It was always a bit chaotic.

There was a more than a bit of the populist politician about him alright. It was always stunts and big gestures (mainly with the aim of making 'him' look good).

^

I am confused how if you read the stats there isn't that much difference between SK and Stan's reigns? Stan won 6 games at least, sure he had better players and if you adjust for expectations then maybe yeah their reigns are similar. It does say something though that we are comparing these two reigns- I think SK much like Stan is out of his depth.. 

What might be forgotten is that Stan had a very strong spine of players available to him, a crop of youth, and even lads like Carsley who returned to the fold. The thought process at the time was that we had fallen badly short of qualifying. Backing up on the disastrous WC '06 qualification campaign it was not something that the powers that be wanted to see happen again, hence the deal with Trap.

Given, Steve Finnan, Dunne, Stephen Carr, John O'Shea, Steven Reid, Andy Reid, Kilbane, Duffer, Robbie Keane, Kevin Doyle, Stephen Ireland, McGeady

A lot of them in their prime as well. Any of those players would improve our current side and any of Robbie and Duff (and a fit Andy or Steven Reid) would be game changers

You must have been in a coma for the last year. 

You actually think Staunton is a better manager than Kenny now, absolutely laughable the levels you’ll stoop to, to have a go  embarrassing 

That team is man for man better than what Kenny inherited

The issue for stan was Cyprus and San marino. It was a shock to our system to have such bad results (San Marino was a win but the nature of it against the worse team in europe was the shock). We had always taken care of the results against the lower teams until then as had all other upper and mid ranked teams generally done whatwas needed against lower teams. As the years progressed after, lot of teams ended up getting some freak results as the lower teams improved and got more professional and orgsnized. 

But still, that squad for Stan we should have been much closer to Czech and Germany but if it was now you would probably not be sacking the manager for a similar return of points and position in a first campaign (it would have got a play off in the expanded format).

As mentioned though it wasn't games against Germany and Czech Republic which cost us that group 1 point against Cyprus (almost 0 if it hadn't been for Finnan's late goal) also the San Marino debacle.

The issue for stan was Cyprus and San marino. It was a shock to our system to have such bad results (San Marino was a win but the nature of it against the worse team in europe was the shock). We had always taken care of the results against the lower teams until then as had all other upper and mid ranked teams generally done whatwas needed against lower teams. As the years progressed after, lot of teams ended up getting some freak results as the lower teams improved and got more professional and orgsnized. 

But still, that squad for Stan we should have been much closer to Czech and Germany but if it was now you would probably not be sacking the manager for a similar return of points and position in a first campaign (it would have got a play off in the expanded format).

Well there is a big difference of 12 points!! 

Kenny's record is the sh*ttest ever by some distance. And it understandable some fans look at that and say he's not good enough. 

Fook me, YTM is now so entrenched in his Anti-SK position, he's beyond parody. If this was FB or Twitter, I would have just blocked him ages ago.  

Nail on the head. I wouldn't have recognised this chap if he passed me on the street. Refreshing after the previous reign of terror

Strazdas wrote: If we were to make a comparison with Michael O'Neill having his contract renewed with NI after a 'bad' campaign, he did so after getting 7 points in the WC group. So we'd be looking at SK picking up around 8 points in order to justify staying - he probably does need to go and win in AZ and Lux to secure the new contract (a win against Portugal would almost certainly manage it).

Probably worth considering exactly where NI were before Michael O Neill in that case.

I wasn't comparing them as managers but more so in the naive fact that both thinking they could have a few years to rebuild the side.  Like Carlito says ''he has a big future if he can live past next week''.

Or as the great Apollo Creed said  ''there is no tomorrow!''

Wise words from one of sports all time greats.

Kenny is on another planet if he thinks the FAI and public will write him a blank cheque to lose as many games as he likes while he tinkers with the side just because he now says he is aiming for 2024.

When Mick was in charge the narrative from Kenny and others including myself was we had the players to get the same results as Mick was getting but in a better more attractive way.  Kenny himself told the press we had excellent players who had lost their way under poor management from his predecessors such as Brady and Hendrick.  He said he fundamentally and totally disagreed with the thinking that we didn't have the players and disagreed with talking down our team.  Now he is doing the same.  He talks up the opposition and makes Azerbaijan, Luxembourg and Serbia sound like world class teams. He didn't like our lack of ambition and now he says we had no hope of qualifying for the WC because he failed at his job to keep us competitive.

All seems like the hurler on the ditch finding it a lot harder than he thought it would be and is now making excuses.

When he started I was 90% optimistic 10% apprehensive he had the pedigree.

Now it has switched around.  The next few games will tell all we need to know.

Top post. This I what he said when he took over whilst remembering he said we had really" .....only won 1 of the 6 games in the group if you exclude  Gibraltar". I assume then he felt that didn't particularly count due to the opposition. Andorra however well.

It's almost as if people believe Serbia, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan have suddenly massively improved and we are really in a group with pot 1 and pot 2 teams.  They are poor sides. We have regressed since Mick.  Serbia are decent but nothing special. What have they ever done? 

What have Ireland ever done?

Mick had us competitive and getting good draws vs the Euro 2020 Quarter and Semi finalists. We were probably the better team at home v Denmark too, which is something that Kenny gets credit for even in defeat.

The standards have dropped a crazy amount since then.

Lets not forget that Kenny told us we had a top 10 back 4/5 in Europe a year ago. Can't keep a clean sheet  though for some reason.

Won 2 European Championships and 3rd in the World in 1998. Underage football may or may not translate into senior team success.   It is certainly no proof that they are a top side.  Serbia were knocked out of the 2018 world cup with not that hard a group.

I was all for Kenny's appointment and was intrigued to see if he could have Ireland punching above their weight like he had Dundalk in the Europa League in which I saw all of their games.  He had them playing nice football and competing but ultimately coming up short.

I had reservations about his pedigree having been only in LOI and a bad stint at Dunfermline. 

He had us playing some nice but ultimately ineffective football up until the England game.  Since then the football has gotten worse and results continued to nosedive.   It looks to me he is tactically not up to scratch at this level and is not making the in game adjustments a top coach would make.  I also think his personality is not up to the media scrutiny at this level.  He can't string coherent sentences together in interviews and looks confused and indecisive never finishing his sentence and going off on tangents. He just doesn't have a strong commanding presence.  This must transmit to the players on some level.

I think people want to believe what he is selling and that is clouding their judgement.   He may have the right ideas but is he the man to implement them?

No, Mick had us "tough to beat", not "competitive". Mick, with a play-off in his back pocket, had us "tough to beat" against Gibraltar & Georgia, with a full squad!

You lads keep glossing over the fact Kenny has been missing half his squad for almost all of his games. Micks team couldn't score a goal when he was just missing McGoldrick (0-0 vs Georgia, 2-0 vs Switz).

Context is important when trying to evaluate why results are the way they are. If all you're doing is looking at the results then you won't identify the actual problems, & your solution will be ineffective.

doherty wrote: This media thing is mullarkey. There are very few coaches who play out well in the media while under pressure. Very few. Mourinho storms off when questioned. Fergie gets the hump with the BBC. Top top managers. Noel King  the list goes on. I couldnt give 2 flying fcuks if he stumbles over every single word. Thats not what we judge him on. And i dont buy this the players aren't getting his message lark either. Hes not speaking spanish is he. Not that hard.

Not to mention Trap who could barely string a sentence together in English. Nevermind getting his point across to the media, the players have openly admitted they hadnt a f**king clue what he was on about at the best of times! Then theres O'Neill who had to send out his lapdog Keane to do most of the media duties for him because he was too precious to take any sort of criticism. 

This overpaid clown was brought in to get sponsors on board…. 12 months down the line and the senior team still has no sponsor. I rest my case. 

The Board made an error but nobody is free from making them. The problem is he has overseen a number; the ‘investigation’ into the video prior the England match, he has kept Cathal Dervan on after his antics in leaking that matter and he has refused to get rid of Joe McGlue whom without, Delaney would never have held on as long as he did. He wasn’t bothered crossing the Irish Sea to meet his team until 6 months after being appointed despite being able to meet the senior team in Wembley. 

An abject performance by an abject appointment. 

Well, he has just brought in Sky for the women's national team. That seems a bit of a coup (rumoured to be a six figure sum per annum).

Stop the world - a “coup” 

Turnover last year was €42 million. That doesn’t cover his wages

You specifically said he couldn't find any sponsors. Getting in Sky to sponsor the WNT for four years seems pretty decent - I believe it's the biggest such sponsorship of any women's sport or team in Ireland until now.

Nothing comparable given the men’s and women’s teams were always sponsored by the brand in the past.

Are you saying he is doing a great job? You’ve gone from saying he secured a coup to saying he got ye biggest sponsorship for a women’s team (because they were never sponsored separately in the past).

He referenced the players we had lost and asked "did anyone really expect us to be *favourites* to qualify?" but pointed out that we set out to win every game, and that we took the lead in Serbia and Portugal.