FAI Director of Competitions, Fran Gavin, has told the PFAI to act “responsibly” after the organisation accused the FAI of “point-scoring”.
Speaking to OTB AM, Stephen McGuinness, General Secretary of the PFAI, criticised the FAI for failing to communicate their plans of providing a €300,000 assistance fund for clubs on wages.
But Gavin has called on the PFAI to share their grievances with the FAI behind closed doors rather than in the public realm.
“We’ve always been open to anything that makes the game better,” Gavin told OTB.
“And any relationship with our stakeholders – if it can be improved – we’ll try and improve it. But it works both ways.
“The responsibility is on all stakeholders to act responsibly around these situations. We do our business internally. We don’t do it out in the public. We’re not into it.
“We try to resolve issues internally. There is a trust issue between the FAI and the PFAI at the moment – that’s fair to say – and that’s unfortunate.
“These issues can be resolved internally and quickly. Anything that feels like there is a media circus around it, affects all of the various stakeholders.”
McGuinness responded to Gavin’s comments and believes the two organisations’ relationship has struggled to recover from a dispute over playing conditions for the women’s international team in April 2017.
“To have a situation where you are looking for another party to get into an agreement with you – to put €150,000 in with three full-time staff – and not to discuss it with you directly...I was shocked,” McGuinness said.
“Simone [Flannery] and Ollie [Cahill] who work for me, the three of us rang each other and said: is this really happening?
“The breakdown in communication goes back to the international women’s stuff. The FAI were badly hurt. We gave them every opportunity to resolve it and they didn’t – and the stand was made.
“To be honest, I think the relationship has become more strained and at no stage has the FAI stepped in to try and iron out the issues.”
James Hopper
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