Officer of the Council ‘bewildered’ by McClean’s departure – Not on the agenda as Board of Directors meet
Billy McClean’s departure from the IABA wasn’t on the agenda or discussed at the IABA Board of Directors met earlier this week.
News McClean left his role as National Youth Coach broke last week via the Irish Independent.
Questions as to what prompted the departure were raised, particularly as McClean had enjoyed great success, effectively over seeing 79 major underage medal wins since taking up the post in 2011.
No clarification with regard to the departure has left plenty of room for rumour and thus more controversy.
There have been unconfirmed suggestions McClean’s departure has roots in the fact it was decided that the Central Council would resume control of underage boxing.
If that is the case the Council seem unaware. Indeed the Irish Independent quote a high ranking officer of the Council as being ‘shocked’ and ‘bewildered’ by the news.
“The first I heard about it was when I read it in the Sunday World yesterday,” the Council Officer said.
“I’m shocked and bewildered. He had been out sick before the outbreak of the pandemic, but my understanding was that he was on the road to recovery. We haven’t been told anything by the CEO or the Board of Directors about Billy McClean leaving,” he adds before praising the work of McClean.
“Billy had been doing tremendous work with the juniors and youths over the last number of years. Control of these programmes was taken back by the Central Council from the High-Performance unit in 2018 and we ran them with Billy as Head Coach.
“It is going to very hard to replace him because he was top class in what he done. He was very good at administration and controlling boxers. He had a great relationship with coaches throughout the country and he was highly respected.”
The IABA Board of Directors met on 29th September. Please see below attachment for a summary of items from the meeting.29th-Sept-20-Meeting-Notes_-BoardofDirectors
