Highly strung stars in need of serious PR

If the PR industry here ever decides to establish some sort of elite corps, a sort of spin doctors' SAS, they'll surely beat a path to the FAI offices in Merrion Square looking to use the organisation as their very own Mexican cave, writes Emmet Malone.

Want to sort the "another brilliant day for football" men from the "let's look on the bright side" boys? Just drop them in a hotel somewhere a few miles southwest of Dublin with nothing but a mobile phone, the number of which is well known to the press, and tell them there's a row masquerading as a board or council meeting about to kick off in the next room. Come back six hours later and if they're still standing you can be fairly certain they're made of the right stuff.

A few days after inheriting the association's media brief, Pat Costello got his first taste of real action on Friday when the FAI council met to discuss, among other things, the long list of queries submitted to it by former Eircom League chairman Brendan Dillon regarding the organisation's finances and corporate governance.

The new man took to his task like a duck to water, portraying what sounded like a long and sometimes difficult meeting as a few hours of pleasant banter at the end of which it was decided to answer Dillon for no other reason than the association's desire to act in "a spirit of openness and transparency".

The new man, though, must still feel some relief that when it comes to the national team it is not the association but the players that need some serious PR advice just now. Last week's disquiet may have been exaggerated at the weekend but it has still highlighted how grimly out of touch our soccer heroes have become with the world most of us inhabit.

It has, of course, been tricky to swallow the regularly peddled line that players know no greater honour than to represent their country since it emerged that when the players' pool for the last World Cup was divided in part on the basis of appearances in the qualifying rounds one member of the squad had to make discreet enquiries as to whether he had featured in any of the games. He had.

Among the gripes reported to be niggling away at some players in recent times were the clampdown on drinking sessions on the Sundays before Wednesday games and what they saw as excessive use of video analysis ahead of friendly games. There was even anguish, it seems, that Mick Byrne is no longer around to lead the pre-match sing-songs.

The reality is that rumours of minor discontent have been circulating for months without apparent evidence of serious dissatisfaction, and there was clearly some surprise within the squad that the media chose to make so much of the matter during the past few days.

Even as he tried to play down reports of anger in relation to the events of last Tuesday, however, Kenny Cunningham provided at the weekend an idea of just how easily some players are upset.

A few squad members were said to have been irritated by a hospital visit that went on until after five that afternoon, but the team captain admitted he had raised the issue of the training session earlier that morning in Bray with Brian Kerr and that "one or two other players mentioned it as well".

Kerr and Pat Devlin in turn are said subsequently to have had words over Bray Wanderers' role in encouraging the crowd to come along.

Now, it's easy to understand that nobody involved with the team was happy over the bus breaking down on the way to the Carlisle Grounds. Still, it would have been nice afterwards if somebody could have expressed some sympathy with, or admiration for, the several hundred schoolchildren or the group of disabled supporters from the northside of Dublin who all waited more than 90 minutes longer than expected on what was a fairly cold morning in order just to get a glimpse of the players training.

Instead there were complaints that the noise they generated, noise that amounted to little more than high-pitched chatter while the players trained, made it difficult to concentrate or hear instructions during the session.

Assurances have apparently been given that it won't happen again.

The game's best team, Brazil, it seems, can happily train amid chaos in Lansdowne Road, but in the brave new world of the ever-more-professional Irish there is no longer much room for the supporters the players repeatedly profess to love so much.