The head of the Irish Sports Council John Treacy confirmed this morning that the dispute between Billy Walsh and the IABA had nothing to do with money and was all about the 'leadership of the programme'.
Speaking to Chris Donoghue and Ivan Yates on Newstalk Breakfast, Treacy said that he believed that a deal was agreed in late August.
On the 22nd of August, a deal had apparently been accepted by the relevant parties. This included the IABA CEO Fergal Carruth and another board member. Treacy said that he himself had shaken hands on the deal.
On Liveline yesterday, Mick Dowling told of how a letter had landed on John Treacy's desk three days later saying that the IABA were unable to ratify the deal.
Treacy claimed that the deal was never even presented to the IABA board for approval.
On Newstalk Breakfast, Treacy essentially endorsed Billy Walsh's version of events and tore into the IABA over a lack of urgency in dealing with the matter.
It is a ridiculous situation to be in.
It fell down on the non-financial aspects of the deal and that is really around the leadership of the programme.
Billy showed tremendous flexibility around the financial aspects, which was great for Billy to do that.
When you do any deal, you have to leave a bit on the table for everyone, and here we were yesterday watching Billy Walsh sitting on his couch talking about being humiliated and undermined.
We appealed to (the IABA) to act on this. There was a total lack of urgency in our opinion.
This is something we warned about eight months ago, to deal with this and deal with it swiftly, and it wasn’t done.
Walsh is set to fly out to the US on Thursday. On the Last Word yesterday, he confirmed that there is no chance of him reneging on his promise to coach the US women's boxing team.
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