When she spoke to RTE’s Tony O’Donoghue a fortnight ago, Vera Pauw vowed that “this will be the only interview that I will give” in relation to the ending of her time as Republic of Ireland manager.
The Dutch woman is, though, never one to go down without a fight, so it remains to be seen if she will respond to the Football Association of Ireland’s reasoning for not renewing her contract.
In the absence of any explanation for that decision over the last two weeks, the vacuum was filled by Pauw’s narrative, but FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill and director of football Marc Canham finally broke their silence in Abbotstown on Thursday.
Fundamentally, Hill explained, Pauw was let go because of her “training methods, the style and nature of training sessions and her approach to fitness and conditioning”.
Canham, who conducted the post-World Cup review that involved 31 interviews with “players, team staff and wider personnel”, including two lengthy discussions with Pauw herself, confirmed that her long held sports science beliefs “do not align with where we want to go forward with our international teams”.
That all sounded a touch waffly, but Hill was unable to put any meat on the bones of the players’ complaints because the findings of the review are confidential, interviews having been carried out “under the promise of privacy”.
[ Vera Pauw claims FAI undermined her authority at World CupOpens in new window ]
It will, then, be up to those players, the vast majority of whom are understood to have wanted to part ways with Pauw, to decide whether they wish to elaborate on their issues with her when they assemble in Dublin ahead of Saturday week’s Nations League game against Northern Ireland at the Aviva Stadium.
Whatever they told Canham, though, was sufficient for him and Hill to recommend to the FAI board that Pauw’s contract not be renewed.
There are echoes here of the dissatisfaction felt by Pauw’s Houston Dash players with her training methods when she was in charge of the club back in the 2017-18 season.
As The Athletic reported in July, those players complained about not being able to maintain their fitness levels because she banned them from weight training and extra running, limiting them to “using little dumbbells from a Jane Fonda workout video”. “They trained in secret because they were afraid of retaliation,” said the report.
The difficulty for the Irish players was that Pauw was their international manager, her rigid fitness and conditioning instructions was often at odds with their regimes at club level – and their clubs were their employers.
That was an issue that raised its head in Pauw’s very first Irish camp, when she challenged Tyler Toland – who she ultimately banished from the international scene, despite all her promise – about her fitness programme at Manchester City. For the then 18-year-old, that was a horror of a dilemma: follow your Irish manager’s advice and risk the wrath of your club, ignore it and face international exile.
Then again, Pauw’s methods were unchanged since she took on the Irish job in late 2019. Why did they suddenly become an issue in the summer of 2023? And did her leading the team to World Cup qualification not suggest those methods were working just fine? No answers on that front just yet.
While Hill was largely conciliatory in his remarks about Pauw, paying tribute to her for her contribution to Irish women’s football – “she will always be the coach who guided us to our first ever women’s World Cup, she and the players have changed the face of women’s football in Ireland forever” – he disputed a number of claims she made in her RTÉ interview.
Pauw had suggested that she had been promised a new contract before the World Cup, and had turned down other job offers as a result, but Hill insisted that no offer was ever made, although there had been informal discussions about one.
Those discussions ended when Pauw “engaged”, as Hill put it, with The Athletic, resulting in the July article that led to the “resurfacing of the NWSL allegations” that had first been made against her the previous December.
“I advised her not to do it,” he said. “I would not say to Vera ‘don’t do something’, you know Vera, but I advised her not to do it because I thought it would be a distraction – and as it turned out, there were certain people who did find it to be a distraction.”
Among those certain people was Irish captain Katie McCabe who could not conceal her fury at the press conference before the July friendly with France being almost entirely focused on Pauw’s continuing battle against those allegations which she vehemently disputes.
Hill, while supportive of Pauw’s efforts to fight back against those charges, was exasperated by her talking to The Athletic when he had asked that the focus not be shifted from the team’s World Cup preparations. It was then, he said, that he decided to “park” any conversations about a contract renewal, three days after Pauw claimed she had received a text message promising one.
Hill also rejected Pauw’s claim that FAI executives had “interfered” in team issues during the World Cup, insisting that there was “absolutely no interference in the technical affairs of the team, whether that be team selection or anything of the sort”.
And he professed himself to be at a loss to understand Pauw’s allegation that he had asked her if she had been Garda vetted.
“To be honest, I was slightly confused about that, where it came from. Just to be absolutely clear, there was no issue whatsoever with Vera’s status regarding being Garda vetted. She was Garda vetted, as are all staff and coaches in the FAI.”
And he also dismissed Pauw’s suggestion that the post-World Cup review was “predetermined”, that the association had planned from a much earlier stage to dispense with her services.
“It was not predetermined, nor was it designed in any way to be a critical review of the manager herself. It was simply about reflecting on the World Cup campaign in its entirety and establishing what is best for this team going forward.
“The recommendation to the board was based on the findings of the review. It is one, we believe, that was a thorough, fair and balanced process. It was based on a range of reasons, not just one in particular, all evidence-based.” It was, he said, focused solely on footballing issues, and not on personality.”
Mindful, no doubt, of the flak the players have been receiving since ties were cut with Pauw, Hill paid tribute to them. “They are an absolute credit to this country, to the association and to their families. They performed to their maximum during Vera Pauw’s time in charge of the team, always gave everything and were very respectful towards her.
“They have made history by becoming the first Irish women’s team to qualify for a World Cup and have inspired a nation by doing so. Without these players and the huge efforts they made, there would have been no World Cup. The same is true for the manager.
“This is a really important point in the context of the history of the FAI in relation to the women’s team. We all remember what happened and what needed to happen in Liberty Hall in 2017. At that time those players did not feel they had a voice and so they felt compelled to express what they felt at the time. And everyone was hugely respectful of that and accepted how brave it was of them to do that.
“But it should not be an issue of bravery for any player who wants to speak out on any topic, or indeed for managers. I think it’s really important that we listen to all of our staff, including the players. It is reflective of a modern organisation and modern leadership to allow that to happen.”
It was a gentle reminder to those, somewhat comically, accusing the association of sexism for parting company with Pauw. They listened to 23 other women, respected their opinions and acted accordingly. From Liberty Hall to player power. It was a long time coming.
