Both the Irish Sun and Irish Independent are reported that Billy Walsh is quitting the Irish boxing's High Performance Programme to take up a position in the USA.
Vincent Hogan reports on independent.ie that this move has happened after a break down in a talks between Walsh, the Irish Sports Council and the Irish Amateur Boxing Association, with Hogan saying:
The Irish Sports Council believed that a package had been agreed with the Irish Amateur Boxing Association last weekend to keep Walsh at home and that that package would be brought for ratification to Tuesday night's IABA board meeting.
This did not happen, however, after the association indicated via email on Tuesday that they had changed their stance on virtually every detail of the package.
Walsh was offered a contract -which dwarfs his current salary - to run the women's programme in America at the beginning of 2015 and made the IABA aware of the developments. Obviously discussions around keeping him in Ireland began but as Hogan points out again:
My understanding is that the issues most pressing to him were not related to money.
Yet, every single one of his requests was flatly rejected.
Every single one of his requests. Whether they were justified in rejecting them or not, losing Walsh is a terribly disappointing development for Irish boxing ahead of next year's Olympics.
Thankfully Walsh has coached an extremely talented group of boxers but it will be a sad situation to not have him on board for Rio.
