THE location was beautiful, the weather couldn’t have been nicer and the ceremony itself just about as pleasant and pain-free as this type of love-in ever is, but us media folk still found reason to grumble at the handover of the Europa League trophy in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
Of course, what do the media ever do but grumble, sez you, and you’d have a point. But, yesterday, we had a point too. After all, it’s not every day that UEFA President Michel Platini is in town and all the pre-event publicity had indicated that he would lower himself, however briefly, to rub shoulders with the scurvy hacks.
But not a bit of it. The mix-zone remained a Platini-free zone while, for his part, FAI boss John Delaney restricted questioning to the Europa League final itself. Or, to be scrupulously accurate here, restricted his answers to questions about the Europa League final.
Because, journalists being journalists, he was still pressed about other matters, including his pay-cut as Chief Executive, but Delaney declined to play ball on the day.
To be honest, this was hardly a surprise to me. There has been a handful of occasions in the recent past when, at the announcement of some new sponsorship deal or other ‘good news’ initiative, the FAI’s top man has found himself in the uncomfortable position of being quizzed about all sorts of other unrelated and far more contentious issues, while the sponsors present look on nervously, doubtless wondering how far down the following day’s columns they’ll have to read before they find their brand getting a little name-check.
So, in truth, the last thing I expected, especially with Mr UEFA at his shoulder, was for John Delaney to leave himself exposed to another episode of the Irish Inquisition, however much he has to accept that this stuff simply comes with the territory and that, as eager as he always is to share glad tidings, he can’t really complain too much when called to account for the negatives.
What I didn’t anticipate, however, was that Platini would not be at his shoulder at all when the mics were switched on, which meant that, sadly, we didn’t get the chance to thank Monsieur profusely for awarding a European final to this poor, bailed-out and ballsed-up little nation of ours. Oh, and speaking of poor little nations, Mr President, and while we have you here, like - any chance you could explain how such a self-styled champion of football’s underdogs as your good self can have overseen the decision to award home advantage in the second leg to seeded teams in the qualification play-offs for next year’s European Championship finals?
Well, Platini was quite the reader of the game back in his day, so he maybe he saw that one coming too.
In any event, the mood of media people, as we stepped back out into the beautiful sunshine in Kilmainham on Tuesday, was hardly at one with nature. But then you try turning a non-event into 700 words of ‘hold-the-front-page’ fireworks and see how full of the joys you are.
And yet, ‘non-event’ is not right either. Not by a long way.
After all, here was a glittering prize being handed over to the city of Dublin for safe-keeping until the capital plays host to its first major European club football final on May 18.
Okay, the Europa League is only the little brother to the Champions League and, sure, the event has been robbed of much local appeal by the failure of Liverpool or Man City to do the needful but, still, it can’t be denied that this is historic stuff for the game in Ireland – two European sides set to do battle for honours in a fantastic new stadium with thousands of visitors descending on the city from overseas and millions more looking on from all across the continent.
We in the dreaded meeja might not have felt so inclined on Tuesday afternoon with a blank notebook and a deadline beckoning, but there comes a time when you have to hit the mute button on the grumbling, acknowledge the sheer good in all this and hope that the hard work that is going in to staging the Europa League final to Dublin is amply rewarded on the night.
Now, about the state of the pitch…
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/CEP6PnC1ago/post.aspx
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