Inter-provincial boss Stephen McConnell labels Ulster FA administration ‘a joke’

Ulster inter-provincial manager Stephen McConnell has labelled the Ulster FA’s administration as a “joke” following the FAI Amateur Interprovincial Soccer Tournament in Sligo last weekend.

McConnell cited a lack of respect and professionalism issued by the board, leaving his squad looking like “a laughing stock”.

Ulster, with eleven Inishowen players in their ranks, suffered defeats at the hands of Munster, 5-1 on Friday, 1-0 to Leinster on Saturday and then, on Sunday, went down 1-0 against Connacht to finish last in the four-team tournament, which was held in Sligo.

Across the weekend, the overarching theme was the lack of preparation and organisation on show from Ulster, which saw them not provided with sufficient match equipment, training gear or indeed notice for the tournament.

McConnell, also manager of Letterkenny Rovers, was only announced as manager of Ulster two weeks before the tournament.

“The way I look at it, there needs to be a whole shake-up in the Ulster FA and rightly so, it’s been 20 years too late, in my view they are an absolute mess,” he said.

“I knew when I took this job as Ulster manager, I was warned by various people - including my father (Danny, former Letterkenny Rovers, Bonagee United, Dromoghill Celtic and Swilly Rovers manager).

“And they all told me that the Ulster FA is a joke, and to be honest they were right. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my life.”

McConnell gives various examples of Ulster’s lack of organisation, and witnessed it earlier this month as Ulster youth team manager when the FAI Youth Inter-provincial tournament was held in Donegal.

“Two weeks ago I took the Ulster youth inter-pros side,” he added. “It was known for about a year that Donegal was going to host this tournament.

“A week before the event I, myself, had to go looking for two pitches because the Ulster FA and their administration never booked them. They just assumed they’d be available.

“I had to contact people to organise how we could have access to these pitches for a national tournament. That’s not my job, that’s the Ulster administrator's job and they never bothered to do a thing.”

Going into the FAI Amateur Inter-provincial competition, McConnell noted the lack of appreciation for the team from the very off.

“What I can’t understand is that I was only offered to take the Ulster senior side at the start of the month, whereas Leinster advertised their management job in August and Munster did the same in September.

“All three other provinces were training since November, and here’s us just meeting on the pitch for the first time on Friday night before our first game.

“Like, it’s important to note that the team that won that tournament got to represent Ireland in a tournament abroad, so there was a lot at stake, it wasn’t just a Mickey Mouse competition.

“That’s why I took the team, because I thought a lot of these players deserved a chance to represent their country, but they were disrespected repeatedly by the Ulster FA and their administration.

“I could never fault the players, I thought they were brilliant. They gave their all, but we were always going to be up against it due to the lack of respect we were shown by the boys upstairs who are meant to represent us.

“The Ulster FA haven’t had an AGM in four years, there’s been no figures disclosed, no new members announced, no ambition to change anything, it’s a closed group and it needs to change.”

The Ulster FA is the provincial association of the FAI and represents all strands of football, male and female, in the Donegal, Inishowen and Cavan-Monaghan areas. The last Ulster FA annual general meeting was held in 2019.

In May 2023, the AGM had to be postponed due to a lack of a quorum with only 17 clubs showing up to the Lake of Shadows Hotel in Buncrana. The meeting was to be rescheduled, but has not yet taken place.

McConnell went into more detail regarding the lack of equipment issued by the board to the team.

“I knew from coaching the youth side that the Ulster FA were disorganised, so I brought my own gear, balls, cones, etc, just in case,” he said.

“On the day of the first match, the administrator from the Ulster FA came down and handed me a bag of gear. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the contents of the bag. There was one blue bib and four footballs, three of which were 15 years old at least.

“When I asked him where the rest of it was, he told me that’s all they had, and they lost the rest of the gear years ago.

“We were a laughing stock when you compare us to the other teams who had loads of gear and tops and all we had was one polo top and a tracksuit top.

“Every other team had polo tops, training t-shirts, bibs, polo necks, waterproof tops, physios, medical teams, nutritionist, and about seven coaches each.”

While McConnell states he would take the team again as manager, he believes a real change is needed and standards need to be raised in order for Ulster to be taken seriously in the future.

“I think the players and the backroom staff are a credit, they had about four days' notice. And for them to give up their own time and time with their families to come down the country to play and then to be disrespected the way they were, it’s not right.

“We’d love this job again but all we want is a bit of professionalism and not to be seen as a joke.”