Macken to sue SJAI

EquestrianEddie Macken, who was sacked last week as Olympic trainer to Ireland's show jumpers, is suing the Show Jumping Association of Ireland (SJAI). Grania Willis reports.

A letter from Peter Law of Dublin solicitors A and L Goodbody was to have been hand-delivered to the SJAI offices in Kill, Co Kildare, yesterday, but SJAI director general John Lyttle said last night that the letter had not arrived. "To the best of my knowledge, no letter had been received when I left the office at 5.30," Lyttle said.

Macken, who was appointed as team trainer in February only to be sacked from the unsalaried post in the middle of last week after three disastrous results in the Samsung Super League left Ireland at the bottom of the league table, said last night the letter had been hand-delivered and that the SJAI had been given seven days to respond.

"I feel at this stage that I have to take this action to defend my reputation," Macken said to The Irish Times from his base in Vancouver. "I have a barrister standing by and the advice I have is that they've dealt with this in a very inappropriate manner.

"It's in everybody's interest that this is sorted out quickly. For the sake of the riders and with the Olympics coming up, we need to get back on a constructive track."

Macken has been signed up to act as a private trainer to a group of the elite riders and will be at the big German fixture in Aachen at the end of the month, but will not be at Rotterdam later this week. There had been plans that the Irish team would boycott the Dutch Super League round, but the riders have now agreed to jump at the show with Tommy Wade as chef d'equipe.

Peter Leonard, chairman of the international affairs committee in charge of team selection, will travel to the Dutch show in an attempt to broker a peace deal between Wade and the riders.

The SJAI holds its a.g.m in Goffs tonight, and national chairman Charles Hanley was due to speak with the four regional chairman last night to discuss calling an emergency meeting of the executive to discuss the controversy surrounding Macken's sacking. However, Hanley said last week that it would be "unusual to see the executive interfering" in such a case.

Details of the controversy are to be given to Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey on Thursday, when he meets Equestrian Federation of Ireland secretary general Dan Butler and Olympic equestrian team manager John Ledingham. Hickey insisted on the meeting at the OCI offices in a bid to get the matter sorted out before it affects Olympic team preparations.

"We want this sorted in the best interests of the athletes and the SJAI needs to know that we are the final arbiter," Hickey said last night.