More than 12 months went by after Marc Canham’s appointment as the Football Association of Ireland’s director of football before he held an on-the-record briefing with the media. There were times over the following two years that he must have wished he’d maintained radio silence, so often were seemingly positive announcements overshadowed by controversy.
When he launched his ambitious Player Pathways Programme in February 2024, the bulk of the questions directed at him were, understandably enough, about the then three-month search for a successor to Stephen Kenny as Republic of Ireland manager.
Canham vowed there would be an appointment by early April, but April came and went. He apologised, and publicly asked John O’Shea to remain in his role as interim manager - without actually checking with O’Shea first to see if he would be free to do so or if he planned on taking up another coaching job.
At last, in July, he was able to unveil Heimir Hallgrímsson - before being peppered with queries about how the shambolic process had taken 231 days before white smoke billowed from Abbotstown’s chimneys.
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And when he introduced Carla Ward as the new manager of the women’s team in January, an appointment that appeared to be something of a coup, Canham had to field a string of queries about the statement Colin Healy had released that same morning.
Assistant to Ward’s predecessor Eileen Gleeson, Healy had alleged that Canham had given him a verbal assurance that his contract would be extended and, therefore, had turned down other job offers. Instead, he was let go.
“It’s deeply regrettable,” said Canham, insisting that no assurance had been given. Whatever the truth, it left Healy, who lost his wife Kelly a year ago, believing he had guaranteed employment to help him raise his two children. That he was driven to release such an emotional statement, when those who know him said it was against his very nature, was some indication of how hurt and angered he was by his treatment.
At times, it was hard to keep count of the own goals.
The women qualifying for their first World Cup, when the men’s results were going from bad to worse, should have been a boon for the FAI, instead it went pear-shaped in the end.
Canham could hardly be held responsible for Vera Pauw and some of her players falling out, but the Dutch woman’s allegations after the decision was made not to renew her contract had echoes of Healy’s complaints.
She had, she claimed, been verbally promised a contract renewal, prompting her to turn down other coaching opportunities, and she also accused Canham and then CEO Jonathan Hill of undermining her authority at the World Cup and interfering in “technical football matters”, allegations they denied.
Replacing Pauw didn’t go too smoothly either. Gleeson took over as interim coach, insisting she didn’t want the role on a full-time basis, wishing to return to her job as the FAI’s head of women and girls football. And then she was appointed on, well, a full-time basis, Hannah Dingley taking over her old role.
Canham hailed Gleeson’s impact on the team during their Nations League campaign. Twelve months later her contract was not renewed. It took four months for the FAI to confirm she was still an employee of theirs, but as yet they haven’t clarified what role she actually fills.
Dingley, meanwhile, finally launched the FAI’s long-awaited “Women and Girls’ Action Plan”, a mish mash of meaningless waffle that you might expect to hear from David Brent while outlining his dreams for Wernham Hogg in The Office. Not Dingley’s fault, the coffers are so bare that all the FAI can afford these days are waffle and dreams.
Echoes were apparent of what Kevin Kilbane wrote in his Irish Times column last year about “Canham’s rhetoric”. “Confident proclamations. Vague assurances. Fake it until you make it.”
As for that Pathways Plan, which was to be Canham’s chief body of work during his tenure, the resistance from the grassroots to some of its proposals, including switching the season to a January to December format and “enhancing” contact hours for League of Ireland academy players during school holidays, suggests not a whole lot of consultation went on.
It was a “poorly conceived” plan, according to the League’s Premier Division clubs last month. And that was them being polite.
There has been many an unsuccessful reign in the FAI over the years. Canham’s, alas, was up there with the least successful of them all.
