Richie Sadlier believes that it's time to shift focus towards those in charge of the hunt for a new Republic of Ireland manager.
Media reports on Tuesday suggested that the FAI have made a fresh approach to convince Anthony Barry, who was part of Stephen Kenny's coaching staff for a period, to take the top job.
Barry currently juggles coaching roles with Bayern Munich and Portugal but he is due to leave his job with the German giants at the end of the season.
Last month, FAI Director of football Marc Canham stated that the appointment of a new Ireland manager would be made in early-April and that "existing contractual obligations" were holding back an announcement.
This led many to believe that England under-21 boss Lee Carsley and now-departed Greece manager Gus Poyet were in the running but both have since ruled themselves out.
Speaking on RTÉ Sport's Champions League coverage on Tuesday night, Sadlier indicated that he was running out of patience with the process and questioned those in charge of finding a new manager.
With Anthony Barry the latest name linked to the Republic of Ireland vacancy, @StephenKelly_2 and @RichieSadlier discuss the ongoing managerial saga pic.twitter.com/ZBm2c99HqX
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) April 9, 2024
"We were told last month that an appointment was going to be made this month, probably early in the month," Sadlier said.
"From Marc Canham's words, we could infer from it that he had his man, he had his target, end stages of negotiations. The phrase he used was 'contractual obligations prevent us from announcing it.
"I read through that and thought it's kind of a done deal and they have to wait until today or this week or next week to announce it.
"The media reports lately don't tally with that at all. If they're still approaching fresh candidates it means what I took from Marc Canham's words last month was completely incorrect, they're not at the end stage, they're still looking.
"It's probably worth shifting our focus from the potential candidates to actually looking at who are the people in charge of this process? It's 9 April. Stephen Kenny's job, the decision was made as soon as the Greece result and that was the summer.
"It's April now. They've already wasted one international window by putting one man [John O'Shea] in charge, didn't have the credentials to have the job, just keep it on an interim level.
"I don't know what else we can say because we're light on details, we don't know whether what's in the media is accurate and maybe the FAI will come out next week and have a really impressive candidate revealed as the manager.
"That's our hope but there is absolutely nothing so far to suggest that that's going to be what we should expect."
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