Donegal All-Ireland winning captain Anthony Molloy has said that the continuing crisis concerning the county’s academy is a bigger concern to him than on-field performances, which have the team currently bottom of Division One.
“It certainly is. There is no doubt about that. That is a bigger concern to me than where we are in Division One. Karl Lacey came in the last couple of years and had done a fantastic job, I mean a fantastic job.
“We were in the top five academies in the country, from what I hear, and now we are sitting without any academy and it should never have happened.
“No one seems to know the answers as to why it did happen but definitely a breakdown in communication between our county board and Karl Lacey and the academy. There is no doubt about that. Karl Lacey is going to be a huge, huge loss to Donegal.”
The crisis has seen the departure of former four-time All Star and All-Ireland winner Lacey as head of the academy, who cited a lack of support from the county board.
This was followed by the mass resignation of the academy coaching and support team, who in a statement said that they had “lost all confidence in governance of Donegal GAA”.
The county GAA “reluctantly” accepted the resignations after mediation attempts had failed.
Molloy, who was speaking in advance of the Laochra Gael programme dedicated to his career and which screens on TG4 this Thursday, said the events would create “a huge vacuum” with no continuity in the academy.
“The way I look at it, the coaches were giving their free time as well and they were totally, totally behind Karl Lacey and he was there as the total manager. A four-times All Star and a man of huge experience, a fantastic footballer as well and another lad, no less than Michael Murphy, all the young lads looked up to.
“All of a sudden he’s gone and it’s going to create a huge vacuum and I think we are having huge problems here and I don’t know where we’re going to start now. I believe the county board met last week and I believe they’re looking for somebody like Karl Lacey, and these people are hard to get.
“It was a very, very backwards step for Donegal. It’s a huge worry right now.”
Amid the blizzard of statements, rumours and responses, the Ardara native pointed out that ordinary supporters required transparency as to what had happened and that the matter needed to be sorted out for the good of the county.
“Yeah, exactly. It’s all about transparency and the county board issued a statement last week but it was a statement set out in such a way that the questions we as supporters have weren’t answered, which is a worry as well. Things have to be more transparent, there’s no doubt about that.
“I just hope that we can get things sorted out and that the supporters know what’s going on, whether it was financial or whether it was personality clashes. I don’t know. There’s a lot of rumours going but I do hope that they get things sorted out and that we will move on and somebody does take up Karl Lacey’s mantle.
“Because everybody I speak to – they couldn’t praise Karl Lacey highly enough as a great coach and as a footballer himself so hopefully we will get it sorted out.
“He stated publicly last week that he will not be coming back, which is a shame. I suppose we have to move on as well. We have to find another head of our academy equal to Karl Lacey.”
