Keith Duggan: Tangled tale of Billy Walsh’s departure a sorry mess for Irish boxing

Clusterf**k: (n) coarse slang (chiefly US)

A bungled or botched undertaking; (also) a situation, state of affairs or gathering that is disorganised or chaotic – Oxford English Dictionary.

It’s about the only word for a classic week of Irish self-sabotage.

The irony of Kieran Mulvey, long regarded as the Atticus Finch of Irish industrial and sporting diplomacy and mediation, embroiled in a bitter and messy and uniquely Irish row, will hardly be lost on the man himself. It wasn't hard to discern the discomfort in Mulvey's voice as he found himself sparring with Joe Christle, the Irish Amateur Boxing Association chairman, on Radio One yesterday, with an exasperated Sean O'Rourke as referee and a reproachful Dessie Cahill in the background. It was terrific Irish radio: riveting, nakedly polemic and wilfully obtuse.

Gaps remain in the narrative that is slowly emerging from the all sides over the abrupt end to Billy Walsh’s wonderful tenure with Irish boxing and his Thursday flight to the US, where he will attempt to get their women’s programme in shape for next summer’s Olympics in Rio.

After a prolonged silence, the IABA have retaliated with a comprehensive statement and a scathing response to Sports Ireland, namechecking Mr Mulvey and CEO John Treacy in their rejection of what they term a "scurrilous, disingenuous and highly questionable attack on Irish boxing." It is true that since Billy Walsh handed in his resignation on Monday the IABA have generally been portrayed as buffoons who, for internal reasons, wanted rid of Walsh.

Yesterday's statement and the genuineness with which Christle and Pat Ryan spoke about their role in the matter and the contract negotiations, was forceful and persuasive in refuting that. But it didn't fill in the gaps of knowledge and it didn't change the salient fact in all of this.

The best thing to happen to Irish boxing in a long time will be working in the other corner at the next Olympics.

Initial urgency

And nobody seems to be able to explain why that has come to pass. All of the relevant parties have to ask themselves pertinent questions here. One of the quieter lines in the IABA statement may be the most relevant. It is stated that Billy Walsh made it known that he had received an offer from US boxing, there were attempts to come to a new arrangement, there had been “an initial urgency to the process at Billy’s insistence but that the urgency subsequently subsided due to overseas commitments”.

Why did it subside? The prospect of losing Billy Walsh to US boxing was public knowledge since August. He announced his resignation on Monday last. There was ample time, in the intervening period, for all relevant parties – the Department for Transport, Tourism and Sport and its Minister Michael Ring, Sports Ireland and the IABA – to come together and absolutely nail down a contract that contained the provisos and subtleties which were critical to Walsh. Why was it still loitering as a background issue throughout the World Championships in Doha, during which Walsh reaffirmed his reputation by leading Irish boxing to its best ever performance at the event?

How could everyone concerned have so disastrously misread the situation that even as they sat down to watch Ireland versus Argentina on Sunday in the belief that Walsh’s new contract was a done deal, the man himself had come to the conclusion that he couldn’t stay?

In his statement, Billy Walsh squarely places the burden of responsibility on the IABA as the reason why he couldn’t remain in Irish boxing. On Friday morning, Pat Ryan and Joe Christle proclaimed themselves mystified as to what had changed in Walsh’s thinking between last Saturday and Monday. But wasn’t there time between Monday and Thursday to try and determine what those factors were and to then iron them out?

And if there were issues or tensions between Walsh and his primary employers, shouldn’t those working in the background have made absolutely sure that they have been resolved prior to assuming that enough had been done to keep Walsh?

“I was under no illusions that this deal had been done,” said Minister Michael Ring on Midwest Radio, who is not known as a man to entertain illusions at the best of times. “I was told they had shook hands on it.”

Joe Christle confirmed as much. But handshakes are all very well at the cattle mart. This is a more serious business and clearly a more nuanced deal. It may have been ill-advised of Christle to publicly recall how Billy Walsh had told him that US boxing had offered him “crazy money” to join their team. To the very end, Billy Walsh has said his decision to leave Irish boxing was not about money. He was willing to stay in Ireland on considerably inferior financial terms.

Was it fair to expect him to do this? Once the US offer became public knowledge in the summer, it was up to Walsh’s paymasters – Sports Ireland, the IABA, the department of sport – to ensure that money was not part of the conversation by putting in place a contract which would match that offered by US boxing.

Walsh wasn’t approached by US boxing because he is a nice guy. They wanted him because of what he has achieved. The money he was offered meant that that was his market value.

New contract

The proposed new contract, as detailed in Friday's Irish Times, still fell well short of the US offer. Billy Walsh is 50 years old and easily the most successful coach in Irish international sport. Yet for years he was working from contract to contract without pension benefits. The US offered him twice his salary plus health plus regular flights home. Plus sunshine.

It could easily be argued that for Walsh to turn down the offer down would have been negligible to his own long-term interests.

On the radio yesterday, Kieran Mulvey pointed out that Billy Walsh wasn’t in a position to respond to the IABA statement because of the time difference in the States. The observation sounded almost like a reluctance to accept that Irish sport has lost Walsh. As the coach said before he boarded his flight, the time for talking is done.

All that is left is for some party to accept the blame. Sports Ireland’s withering castigation of the IABA has backfired. So, too, has their threat, to review their funding to the association – a threat made impotent by Minister Ring, who, with the innate politician’s ring sense, read the public mood and issued a verdict to the contrary.

The disappointment from all sides sounds genuine. And there are no pantomime villains here. But it is too little too late. And it doesn’t change the fact that this is another Irish political and sporting omni-shambles. The custodians of Irish sport – from Michael Ring down – have allowed a world-class gem of a boxing coach to pass into the hands of an Olympic superpower. Billy Walsh said he was in tears that he was leaving. And yet he left on their watch.

The future of Irish boxing is what is at stake here but this sorry mess, this usual disgrace, is an unhappy reminder that Ireland is the undisputed world champion when it comes to mugging itself.

It was raining in Colorado Springs on Friday and just six degrees celsius. But Billy Walsh took a lot more than the weather with him.

The Americans mustn’t be able to believe their luck.