Bernard Dunne – We don’t know all the facts regarding Billy Walsh’s departure
The Irish boxing community was saddened yesterday with the new the High Performance Unit head coach Billy Walsh would be leaving his role with Ireland to take up pastures new with the US Women’s boxing team.
The issue forcing Walsh’s departure is based upon a lack of control granted to him by the IABA with relation to his team – although former WBA, and European Super Bantamweight champion Bernard Dunne believes there are issues involved that have not been made public.
Speaking on the Joe Duffy Show on RTÉ Radio One, Dunne reasoned that “You want somebody to be able to stand over his own team, to select his own team and it doesn’t seem to be a money issue.”
The Irish Rover was disappointed with the end result and isn’t hopeful that the situation can be saved, explaining that “This is our leader-in-chief going onto new pastures and we don’t want that to happen. If there was some way there could be some mediation, Jimmy Magee has offered his services, but I’m sure that [mediation] has already been tried.”
Dunne however, was hesitant to strongly criticise the IABA in the heat of the moment as “there is obviously something in there the IABA are unhappy with, we just don’t know all the facts.”
Both Walsh and the IABA yesterday released statements – although neither addressed in detail the issues leading to Walsh’s departure.