Man who did it his way has no regrets

LOUIS KILCOYNE would be entitled to regard 1996 as his annus horibilis. He began the year with so much optimism and energy, president of the FAI and head of the six man panel charged with recommending a new manager in succession to Jack Charlton. By 3.30 am on March 8th he was voted out of office on that celebrated night of the long knives.

Regrets, maybe, he's had a few, but surprisingly few to mention. Kilcoyne is remarkably sanguine about it all. Thus, when you ask if he's glad to see the back of 96, he says: "I've mixed views about that.

"I still consider myself to be enjoying football and in a positive way. I'm still a member of the FAI by way of my membership of Cork City. I see at least one match every week which brings me amongst people I enjoy. Life goes on, life in the sense of what I've been doing all those years.

"On the downside there was disappointment in that nine votes out of 52 removed me from the presidency of the FAI. But I managed to be strong in the matter. After all, I was only president of a sports association," he says. Shades of Boris Becker's "I only lost a tennis match nobody died out there".

Nevertheless, since his family took control of Shamrock Rovers in the early 70s, Kilcoyne has rarely had such a hands off role in Irish football.

"I miss the actual involvement in the running routine of the game, I miss the actual involvement," he says. "However, on the plus side, I'm an active member of FIFA and UEFA, and I travel abroad once a month as observer to major international and European games.

"I also had a reassuringly animous nomination as the FAI's delegate to the Olympic Council of Ireland where I was re elected as vice president. This was gratifying as I'm a member of FIFA's Olympic Organising Committee which is already planning for Sydney 2000.

"I arranged a tour to Georgia, South and North Carolina for the current under 23 National League team and it's my hope that the association will take a serious interest in qualifying for Sydney 2000."

The procedure for reaching Sydney is relatively straightforward, based as it is on the UEFA Under 21 championship qualifying campaign. If the Republic of Ireland win their group, they would qualify, and Kilcoyne adds that Bernard O'Byrne, the FAI's chief executive, "is anxious that this be the case; he shares this objective".

There was also the pick me up of a three week appointment as FIFA's representative in charge of a 16 team Asian qualifying tournament for the Atlanta Games in Kuala Lumpur last May. "That was an honour for me and the FAI, I believe."

That followed the events of March 8th. It goes without saying that it constituted the low point of his year. "I can't pretend that there was anything else which was so bad. But I remain strong and press on.

It was a remarkable night, Kilcoyne fighting long into the morning like the great survivor and political animal that he is. Such were the vagaries of the process that had the Leinster FA's block vote of nine gone in his favour, Kilcoyne would have held on. Their block vote had been tipped that way due to an internal vote of 5-4 amongst their nine delegates. In other words, one vote could have tipped the scales his way.

Kilcoyne seemed to revel in the intrigue. When he emerged from the FAI's senior council meeting to be met by a battery of cameras, he announced, mischievously, "I'm only going to the loo".

By the time March 8th came, one sensed that half the FAI council and half the media which had congregated in the Westbury Hotel didn't even know why they were there. The whole thing had long since spiralled out of control. The point of no return in this observer's view came on February 21st when the officer board misguidedly stonewalled their way through a less than frank and accountable press conference.

That night, and throughout the whole saga, many questions remained unanswered. The FAI's difficulties were compounded by the whiff of financial irregularity in the matter of ticket sales. Kilcoyne's celebrated gaffe in admitting that Mick McCarthy was not his first choice to replace Jack Charlton - it subsequently emerged that he wasn't even Kilcoyne's second choice - was a relatively minor offence.

However, it was compounded by the withdrawal of an agreed statement on behalf of the six man selection panel, and the officer board's insistence on February 21st that it didn't even exist. The one non officer member of the panel, Finbarr Flood, promptly resigned.

"I've no regrets in the stance I took and I suppose I believe I was hung by headline," reflects Kilcoyne. "In the external auditor's report, I'm not even mentioned in it other than as an officer. In other words, the headlines supported the feeling that I was robbing the till and the petty cash as well, and in reality I'd, personally done nothing wrong.

He does accept a measure of culpability during those turbulent three months when Charlton, Sean Connolly, Joe McGrath and Michael Morris all departed. "It is fair to say that in view of all of that the officer board, collectively, were not sufficiently on top of things."

For all that, you believe him when he says: "I don't bear any grudges. Life goes on. I still have involvement and I consider myself content in that respect."