By Paul Doyle
Waterford United this afternoon revealed that management of the First Division team has been entrusted to players Brendan Rae and Paul Scully following Paul Power’s resignation which was announced this morning.
Rae and Scully will take charge of the team for tomorrow night's crucial clash with Dublin City, and, Chariman Ger O'Brien told ireland.com, will "sit down with the Board on Monday, when everyone's head has cleared, and see where we go from here."
O’Brien also expressed his "shock" at Power’s decision to resign. He says Power came to him yesterday morning and announced that he and the entire coaching staff were stepping down immediately.
"I was flabbergasted," said O’Brien. "We didn’t release a statement until this morning because we wanted the players to find out from us first and when we told them at training last night they were equally stunned."
Power’s decision followed requests from the Board that he consider "paring back" some of his backroom staff as part of the club’s efforts to meet the need to save some £3,000 per week. Waterford employ four full-time players, and run a FAS youth development scheme which currently has 18 participants, and O’Brien insists the club must modernise to survive.
"I’m a football man, I’m 47 and I’ve been involved in the local game here since I was 12 years old, and my priority is to win promotion this year. I don’t want this to be seen as another example of business taking preference to football. It’s about being practical, you can’t continue sustaining losses forever. We have to make some cutbacks.
"We’re trying to introduce a bit of professionalism here," maintains O’Brien. "We asked Paul to take on some administrative aspects of football management, I don’t mean sitting in an office all day, just simple things like keeping in touch with the league and arranging the team bus."
"We also asked that he pare back his backroom staff and maybe consider selling one or two players, not crucial players but ones he hadn’t been using in recent months. But we didn’t even get to discussing it. He just came in and said they were leaving."
The FAI are set to announce their new football development plan next Monday, and O’Brien hopes it contains schemes to help clubs like Waterford.
"There’s a role for the higher authorities here. Every year we hear of three or four clubs being close to liquidation and there’s a lot of chairman with serious pains in their pockets. Fans are sick and tired of hearing about clubs complaining, they just want to see success on the pitch, so if the league can’t come up with some kind of package we’re not going to attract new supporters.
"Here in Waterford we have a hardcore group of about 1,500 fans. I’m delighted with them, but, to be honest, that just about covers the cost of staging a match. I’m not saying the whole thing’s about to collapse here. What I’m saying is we have to get sensible."