The "bad vibe" around Donegal football eventually led to Paddy Carr stepping away as manager of the county's senior side, according to Ciarán Whelan
Furthermore the former Dublin star believes the nature of Carr's departure, and that of Ray Dempsey's recent decision to quit as Limerick boss, are now issues of concern for the GAA.
Mayo native Dempsey, after being at the helm for just five competitive games, made his decision to leave following a meeting of the Limerick players a fortnight ago. Carr decided he had enough after six games in charge, departing the scene with Donegal propping up Division 1 and the county in the midst of a crisis with its underage academy.
Karl Lacey quit as head of academy development last month, with a host of coaches subsequently standing down in solidarity with him.
Speaking on the RTÉ GAA Podcast, Whelan, while not knowing the full ins-and-outs in both Donegal and Limerick, had sympathy for both Carr and Dempsey, highlighting the now ever-growing demands placed on the inter-county manager.
"There seems to have been a bit of a push in both situations and overall it's concerning for the game," he said.
"You can talk about managers being paid or not being paid. Whatever it is, these guys are not making a fortune and they also have to put in an incredible amount of time into managing an inter-county team. You talk to guys that were involved and have come out of it, and now reflect on it, they will say that the amount of time required was off the scale.
"In both these cases there would seem to have been a bit of player kick-back. We don't know the ins-and-out of it, so we can't really comment. I would imagine in both cases players sat down and questioned management decisions, questioned issues around the management. The two managers then said: 'Do you know what, I'm out of here; I've put too much time into this; I've better things to be doing'.
"Both of them quickly exited stage left and headed out the door.
"It is concerning that we're at this stage in the GAA world. It has a potential impact going forward."
With Donegal struggling on the pitch and all the mounting off-field issues, a number of contributing factors it would seem were stacked up against Paddy Carr.
"The court of public opinion was against the management team," Whelan added.
"Paddy Carr is a gentleman and I always felt in some ways he was too nice for the job and was going into a difficult scenario. There are numerous issues in Donegal, but when there is a bad vibe around the county it doesn't take long for that to start encroaching into the dressingroom.
"When there's a lot of flak coming from various directions within a county it can seep in to that dressingroom room very, very easily. I think there has been a bit of collateral damage in Donegal.
"The vibe in Donegal; the atmosphere has been pretty toxic for the last six to eight weeks. Combine that with a couple of relatively poor performances and then missing the likes of Paddy McBrearty and Ryan McHugh.
"They were struggling to find an offensive plan; playing Hugh McFadden on the edge of the square didn't work, he didn't look comfortable. It was a case of patching things up. A lot of challenges thrown in his [Paddy Carr's] direction."
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