Cycling Ireland president and two board directors step down

The board of Cycling Ireland will be reconstituted after a bitter governance row came to a head on Wednesday with the departure of the body’s president Liam Collins and two long-standing board directors.

Mr Collins, president only since November, had become embroiled in a dispute with other board members after the body admitted using “false quotations” in a 2020 claim for a Government grant.

In a statement, the outgoing president said there had been “concerted opposition” to his agenda. “There have been irreconcilable – and much publicised – issues however at Board level, and it appears it is not possible to pursue the work I had intended to,” he said.

The other directors who stepped down were Eugene Moriarty, the treasurer, and Anthony Mitchel, board secretary. Their exit follows the resignation last week of three independent board members.

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Cycling Ireland said the departures “will leave sufficient board members to enable the board to be re-constituted” with the support of Sport Ireland, the State supervisor of national sports governing bodies.

Although board rows originated in tension over the grant claim, Sport Ireland said last week that a “new issue” emerged. The issue in question was a disagreement over the terms of a December partnership deal with EvoPro Racing, a cycling team.

Six nominees

Cycling Ireland has named six nominees to fill board vacancies: barristers Louise Reilly and Susan Ahern; World Cyclo Cross official Gary McIlroy; Ulster Cycling nominee Claire Young; and Munster Cycling nominee Dr Tom Daly. Emma Hunt-Duffy, head of marketing with fruit importer Fyffes, will rejoin the board after resigning last week.

Solicitor Conor Campbell will continue as vice-president until the election of a new president at the body’s annual meeting in November. Matt McKerrow, the chief executive, said: “Cycling Ireland deserve a leadership which is unified and shares a crystal-clear vision and plan for the development of the sport.”

The rows have prompted an Oireachtas committee to demand a hearing with Cycling Ireland on March 9th.“Recent developments within Cycling Ireland give me great cause for concern,” said Fine Gael TD Ciaran Cannon, a member of the Oireachtas committee on sport.

Before the latest resignations, Mr Cannon said: “This is a national sporting body which continues to receive very substantial state funding, yet its governance structures seem to be exceptionally weak, with a level of disharmony amongst its leadership.”