Dion Fanning: Irish football can’t handle the truth

The interim managerial career of John O’Shea offers as good a study as any into the state of Irish football.

It would be customary to write the “current state” but this has been the existence for so long that it must qualify as permanent.

But it’s a permanent state that can never look beyond short-termism. This makes it fitting that a man appointed for two friendly matches is now being judged on the basis of two non-competitive games at the time of the season when everything matters except them.

The friendlies don’t tell us much about anything except the desperate state of Irish football that has come to rely on a couple of friendlies for insight and meaning.

What a rollercoaster it has been for Irish football since a month ago when O’Shea was appointed as interim manager for those two matches. Way back then, O’Shea’s brief was clear: he would take over for two games against Belgium and Switzerland at which point this great servant of Irish football’s interim work would be done.

The new manager would then be clear of their existing contractual obligations and would be revealed in early April. When these words were uttered by Marc Canham, there was almost no need for a revelation.

At the end of February it was assumed that the existing contractual obligations applied to Lee Carsley but we now know — or think we know — that it won’t be him. A month later and nothing can be guaranteed including your understanding of early April.

The FAI lost control of the story a long time ago and have now reached a point where, after all this time, a significant appointment is expected.

Having missed one deadline, there are reports that the early April announcement will not take place before the women’s international game against England