The humidity and sun made it a thirsty couple of weeks!!!!!! Savage number of Irish being treated for dehydration on the concourse in Orlando during the Mexico game.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...00-000-for-foundation-and-walk-idea-t8fcvf2xc The FAI paid €300,000 to a friend of John Giles for coming up with the “concept” of the John Giles Foundation, its fundraising walks, and a kit-purchasing idea. The payments to Con Martin, a former League of Ireland player, were made in 2011-16 at the same time as FAI staff salaries were being cut. The €5,000-a-month payments to Martin were initially queried by FAI officials but sources say John Delaney, then chief executive, insisted they had to continue. Since 2016, Martin has been threatening to sue the FAI for further monies he alleges the association owes him. According to minutes from a November 2016 FAI board meeting, Martin said he had been told by Giles that the FAI sold the Walk of Dreams concept to Uefa, the European governing authority for football, for €10m. The board was told the “endgame” was “not giving him [Martin] any more money” but this would be “hard to achieve”. Delaney was said to be meeting Giles to discuss the issue. The board was also told the FAI would attempt to settle Martin’s claim in order to prevent the case going to court and getting publicity. Delaney said he would attempt to get Martin to settle his claim, with a confidentiality clause. Giles, an ex-Ireland player and manager and RTE football pundit, did not return calls last week. A friend of Giles said his position was that the FAI payments to Martin “had nothing to do with him”. Established in 2011, the John Giles Foundation is run by the FAI, which controls its bank account. It is not a registered company or charity. It first ran countrywide sponsored walks for football clubs under the Walk of Dreams banner in 2011. While it reported raising €360,000 in 2011, this dropped to €60,000 in 2012, after many football clubs refused to get involved as the foundation was keeping half the money raised to distribute to other clubs and applicants. One figure in football said: “We were encouraged to take part in Walk of Dreams in order to raise funds for clubs and leagues, in conjunction with our own fundraising. It fell apart after the first Walk of Dreams; the clubs wouldn’t support it any more. We raised a lot of money and got very little out of it.” The foundation has since carried out fundraising events, including a dance competition for which Nadia Forde, a model, was paid to fly from Los Angeles to Dublin, where she danced with Delaney. In April, when it was put to him during an interview on Newstalk that concerns about his foundation had been reported to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, Giles said he had no concerns over the organisation as all money raised was used to support grassroots football. Giles said he hoped his foundation would last another nine years. Its website has not been operational in recent weeks. The last publicised event on its Facebook page was a 2017 golf classic. This weekend Martin confirmed he got 60 payments of €5,000 between 2011 and 2016 from the FAI. He said the payments were for the Giles foundation, the Walk of Dreams, and a “concept” called Team Kit Wear which proposed combining all clubs’ purchasing power to secure discounts. Martin said he signed a contract with the FAI in 2008. He ran the John Giles golf classic for eight years, and says Giles approved him setting up a foundation that the FAI then “bought” from him. Martin insisted he had not used Giles’s name when he told the FAI he had heard the association had sold his concept to Uefa. “I lost my head because I said that he [Delaney] had the rights for the Republic of Ireland only, and I had the copyright/intellectual property for the rest of the world,” said Martin. He says his claim for further FAI payments is still alive and he is consulting his solicitor this week. The FAI did not respond to questions. Last night Uefa said that “after an initial investigation” it could find no record of the alleged agreement with the FAI.
You should route out the initial interview with Giles in April. It's a painful listen, he was a broken man.
ROY KEANE has broken his silence on his departure from Ireland by hitting back at Jon Walters, Harry Arter and Stephen Ward for their part in the fraught period that preceded his exit. The Corkman offered the opinion that Martin O'Neill was 'harshly treated' and suffered 'nasty' criticism, but said that he sensed the writing was on the wall when businessman Denis O'Brien stopped helping the FAI pay the management's team wages. He acknowledged they were well paid. But Keane pulled no punches when it came to Walters, Arter and Ward who were all caught up in controversies in his final year in charge. The assistant boss rowed with Arter and Walters over the amount of training they were doing leading up to a summer international window. And Ward recorded a Whatsapp audio message describing the argument that went public several months later and brought matters to a head. Keane said he was annoyed by players that were 'on a programme, and the programme is they don't train or play' before referencing Walters 'not kicking a ball' during his time at Burnley. "Harry Arter went to Cardiff on loan, they got relegated," he said. "Wardy can't get in the Stoke team at the moment and they're down at the bottom of the league." But Keane - who was speaking at a Cadbury's Off The Ball roadshow in Dublin's Bord Gais Theatre - saved his most stinging and personal criticism for Walters, referencing his appearances on the media circuit. Read more here: Watch: Jon Walters opens up on 'triple-whammy' of tragedy in hugely emotional Late Late Show appearance "He talks a good game," he said. "Imagine if he'd won a trophy. He goes on the TV about how he was harshly treated by me. He's crying on the TV about his family situation. Roy Keane and Jonathan Walters Roy Keane and Jonathan Walters "Maybe he should lie low for a while. Have a look at his medals? That wouldn't take long." "We got beaten by Wales. Jon played. Jon didn't have a good game. Wardy played, he didn't have a good game. They need to go back see how bad they were." When it was put to Keane that Walters had scored big goals during his Irish career, he replied: "How many years ago is that? How long is he going to live off that? A certain player scored against Holland and he still is," with a clear nod to his old foe Jason McAteer. Read more here: 'He's coming into his prime in coaching and management' - Gary Neville insists Roy Keane is no risk for club job The Corkman stressed that he had enjoyed his time with Ireland working under O'Neill, and declined to expand on the FAI's current position. Indeed, the 48-year-old asserted that he is keen to return to management in the future and might one day like to be considered for the Ireland job. In a stage appearance in front of over 2,000 guests, he admitted that he still suffers from homesickness and hasn't ruled out the possibility of coming home to live in Cork at some stage in the future. Keane left the Ireland job in November 2018 after a scoreless draw with Denmark brought down the curtain on a disappointing Nations League campaign and he feels that O'Neill had earned a crack at the Euro 2020 mission. But he knew their goose was cooked pre-Aarhus. "You smell stuff. You sense something is coming," he said. "But all this idea of losing your job and the sack. That doesn't frighten me. That's part of the industry you're in. "With the Irish job, I loved every minute of it. People still say to me, sorry, it didn't work out with Ireland. I say 'it did' we had two proper campaigns. We qualified and got to a playoff. If every Irish manager did that, Irish football would be in a decent place. Read more here: 'You’re a f***ing pr***, you don’t wanna train' - The full transcript of Stephen Ward's leaked audio message "There's no doubt in my mind, Martin has been harshly treated. There's a lot of negativity and spin. I knew when Denis O'Brien stopped paying our wages.. I said to Martin, if we get any sort of sticky patch, we'd be gone. With the lack of quality (in the squad), we were always going to hit a sticky patch. "You were hoping that people would stick with you but nine times out of ten people will panic and make a decision. I loved the buzz of the games. I loved working with Martin. A brilliant player, a really good guy. We had one or two games - Bosnia, Germany - that were up there with the highlights of my career. Read more here: Ireland vs Switzerland Euro 2020 qualifier: What time, what TV channel it's on and all you need to know "I think we should have been kept on for another campaign. But with the wages situation, I knew I was on a good deal. Towards the end, we were struggling. We were trying young players. We said we had to take our medicine and get through it and we had signed our contracts to stay on. I think Martin was harshly treated, but we'll survive. We are big boys. Life goes on." Keane asserted that his next job will be as a number one, having realised that life as a number two at club level didn't work for him during his stay at Nottingham Forest. He did admit to making some mistakes during his career in the dugout, yet argued that stories about his dressing room manner were exaggerated. Read more here: Jon Walters: Roy Keane/Harry Arter row 'changed atmosphere' in Ireland camp and Ward's WhatsApp version was 'mild' "People say I was very demanding," he said. "As if I should almost apologise for it, particularly when I'm in a coaching role. "Sometimes you're trying to motivate players. Did I get it drastically wrong with the situation at Sunderland? At Ipswich? Maybe they (players) got it wrong. Maybe they over-reacted. "Brian Clough. You're on about motivation. He punched me one time. He was upset. It was heated. He punched me. I remember thinking 'You're still a brilliant manager'. I came in the next day and trained. I didn't text somebody in the media. Or go on Ratsapp." Read more here: Harry Arter says he was just following team orders when Roy Keane launched his expletive-laden tirade Keane also went over old ground by discussing his contentious departure from Manchester United, stressing that he is still waiting for an apology from Alex Ferguson and David Gill over the way in which his abrupt exit was handled.
I always think Roy Keane has one rule for Roy Keane and one rule for everyone else. Gets the boot in on everyone as hard as he possibly can but accepts no responsibility for anything himself. He is 100% right about Saipan, he is 100% right about Sunderland where he got all the backing he wanted and walked, he was harshly treated at Ireland, he was screwed over in United. There has never been anything he has ever done that was wrong or that he regrets.
Nobody more hypocritical than the "I say it as it is" brigade. Could you imagine what Roy Keane the player would have to say about Roy Keane the manager/coach? That's without looking at the fact he's turned into everything he claimed to hate,a pundit who people want to listen to not because he's going to say anything insightful or that surprises them,but because they know he's going to insult somebody. And for the hypocritical hat trick he's crying about how ManU treated him when he was no longer up to that level. He reminds me of Noel Gallagher now, every interview and media appearance works to the same template with the odd substitution of the people they're insulting or things they're crying about. "Great interview from Noel/Roy.Box office,says it like it is". I enjoyed that interview the first 5 or 6 times they gave it.
Texting is different to talking (listening), but my assumption is that Keane is having a go at Walters for complaining on TV. To bring Walter's "crying about his family" into it is a very, very low blow, considering what Walters has gone through. I was never a fan of Keane, but that is a disgusting statement from him.
A few lads were at it I know and Keane was in his element back in the limelight. Seemed to be lined up to create headlines.
RatsApp is a good one in fairness. I also think he had a fair point about those not training, if you're Paul McGrath or Ledley King you can make a case for it, having somebody bang average who doesn't train picked ahead of you is terrible for team moral.
Went in completely unnecessarily about Walters talking about his family! Completely uncalled for but the rest of it is just him being a whiney bitch.
I'd say he's had that in the locker for months and was just waiting for someone to ask him about the Irish players. Similar to the Utd players falling out in the dressing room after hearing the were throwing shampoo at each other.