Andy Lee calls for Kenny Egan to join High Performance set up

Andy Lee has admitted he would be open to joining the High Performance coaching staff – indeed it has been suggested that Head Coach Zaur Antia would love the former WBO middleweight champion and 2004 Olympian to be part of the team.

However, Lee believes that there is another Olympian out there already that the IABA should pursue.

The Limerick man, who was Ireland’s sole boxing Olympian in 2004, believes National Stadium favourite and Beijing silver medal winner Kenneth Egan would prove the ideal number two to the Georgian coach.

Not only that, the highly-respected Lee, speaking on Newstalk, didn’t shoot down the suggestion of handing Egan the crucial role of High Performance Director. The IABA are on the look-out for someone to fulfill the role last held officially by Gary Keegan, then performed unofficially by Billy Walsh.

“I think he’d be a very good shout,” admitted Lee. “Kenneth is an asset especially as a coach. He’s a qualified councillor now which would help with some of the issues they had and dealing with some of the personalities they had going into the Olympics.”

“They had all these different personalities. What I heard was that there was three different factions inside the camp. Different coaches were favouring different boxers, there was a lot of in-team politics.”

“I think Kenneth Egan should be the number two coach to Zaur Antia.”

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Joe O’Neill and Gavan Casey look ahead to 2017 in episode 1 of The Irish Boxing Show