Dear John

As you may already have noticed, this is a Dear John letter. The original Dear John letters were sent by the spouses and girlfriends of soldiers serving overseas in order to inform the aforementioned warriors that they had fallen out of love with them. Well, the Irish soccer team are now home from their most recent foreign campaign and their public has not fallen out of love with them yet. But that affection and patience are not infinite.

I'm writing you this letter because it is generally accepted that your writ, and yours alone, runs in the FAI. Perhaps it's not a good thing that the Association is increasingly seen as one man's personal fiefdom but that is a separate issue from the matter in hand. Steve Staunton must go and you appear to be the only man who can make that decision. It's a burden but it's the type of burden you're paid to shoulder.

There are many good players currently wearing the Irish jersey and they put in an immense amount of effort. Only the most cold-blooded of spectators could have failed to be stirred by the way the likes of Richard Dunne, Paul McShane, Kevin Doyle, Andy Reid, Stephen Hunt and Shane Long battled over the past week on their travels.

The peerless Dunne apart, Andy Reid was our best performer in Prague and it was his promptings which offered the best hope of us obtaining an equaliser. This begs the question of why he was left on the bench for the entire game against Slovakia. Stephen Hunt's contribution to the two games was even briefer. But, before we rail against the referee who robbed him of half an hour against the Czech Republic, perhaps our wrath would better be directed against the manager who robbed him of two full hours before that.

It's fair to say that had Steve Staunton started Hunt and Reid against Slovakia we would have won that game thus rendering our situation in the group serious but not absolutely hopeless. The impression most of us had on Saturday of a demoralised Slovakian team which was there for the taking was borne out by Wales' subsequent 5-2 win in Bratislava. There was a lot of nonsense talked about Ireland seeking their first away win over meaningful opposition in 20 years. In fact, the Latvian and Lithuanian teams we defeated away in the Mick McCarthy era and the Georgian side we won against during Brian Kerr's reign were all stronger than Slovakia.

Hunt's misfortune in crossing the path of the latest inheritor of the ignoble Greek refereeing tradition (the Ottoman Turks didn't give it half hard enough to those boys) shouldn't obscure Staunton's lunacy in selecting Kevin Kilbane ahead of him. In fact there can be no greater indictment of both the current manager and his predecessor than the oft-repeated statistic about Kilbane's remarkable run of starts in the Irish jersey.

It would take a very creative film editor indeed to produce a memorable collection of highlights from the million or so caps the Wigan midfielder appears to have amassed. We'd have him doing the thing where he pushes the ball between a couple of defenders and falls over, the one where he puts his head down and runs the ball out over the line, the one where he kicks the ball too far ahead of himself and loses possession. The crowning glory could be the moment on Wednesday night when he jumped up in the air and turned his arse to the ball as Marek Jankulovski set about engineering the winner.

Nobody likes criticising Kilbane, he's got a lovably helpless set to him like a willing and affectionate dog you can't train to do anything you want. But Hunt has brought more to the Irish team in his last four appearances as sub than Kilbane brought in his last 14 as a starter. His main contribution appears to be as the target on the wing for Shay Given's goal-kicks, an equivalent to the Gaelic football tactic of kicking the ball out to a big half-forward. The only difference is that in Gaelic football the player can use his hands to catch the ball and retain possession whereas all Kilbane usually manages to do is head the ball on to the opposition.

My own feeling is that, as a former team-mate, Staunton doesn't want to be the man who brings Kilbane's inexplicable run to an end. Perhaps you think I'm over-rating Hunt? Well, all I know is that his introduction on Wednesday totally changed the complexion of the game. It was not just the fans, but his team-mates also appeared to be lifted by the arrival of the Reading man. The same thing happened when he came on against both Wales and Slovakia at Croke Park. I know that the tackle which saw him unjustly sent off was a wild one but he might not have been quite so anxious to make an impression had he been given his rightful place to begin with.

The selection of Kilbane over Hunt is just one of the mistakes which have given our qualifying campaign its uniquely shambolic flavour. The two wins in Croke Park briefly took the bad look off it but the sad truth is that we are not so much competing for second with the Czech Republic as slogging it out with Wales and Slovakia to avoid the embarrassment of a fifth place finish.

And the buck, I'm afraid, stops with the manager. Forget that canard about him being limited by our lack of world class players. While we were trying to take some solace from our latest gallant defeat, Scotland were beating France 1-0 in Paris. The Scots currently lead a group that contains the two teams which contested the last World Cup final, France and Italy, not to mention the Ukraine side which reached the quarter-finals of that tournament and are greatly superior to the flaky Czechs. Even if they miss out on qualification they have given their fans a memorable run for their money. We've done nothing of the sort.

And who are the world class players in the Scottish line-up? Alan Hutton? Graham Alexander? Stephen McManus? Their winning goal was scored by James McFadden, a striker no Premiership manager would pick ahead of Robbie Keane and Kevin Doyle. (Though the first task for a new boss would be to give the indolent Robbie a kick up the rear end. Shane Long gives us more up front than the Spurs man does at the moment.)

Alex McLeish, the manager who has wrought a huge transformation in Scotland is hardly a household name. Yet there is one huge difference between him and the Irish boss. McLeish brought 13 seasons of experience to the job, including experience in European football with Rangers. He was willing to work his way up to this job. Steve Staunton, on the other hand, went straight in at the top. Where McLeish learned the ropes against the likes of Falkirk, Patrick Thistle and Raith Rovers, Staunton cut his teeth against Germany and the Czech Republic.

You see, John, the reason most of us are impatient with your appointee is that nobody had much faith in him when he was appointed. His complete lack of managerial experience made him look like a man who didn't deserve the job. The only encouraging thing we could find to say was that old Hollywood line, "This idea is so crazy, it might just work." It was crazy. But it didn't work. The burden of proof was on Steve Staunton and he merely proved himself incapable.

My fear is that a combination of lassitude and sentiment will see the floundering manager get a crack at the World Cup qualifying campaign as well. But the fans deserve better. They're great fans, compare the half-empty stadiums you see at so many of our away matches (a mere 16,648 in Prague for example) and then think of the crowds who packed Lansdowne Road for the most routine of friendlies.

It's become fashionable lately to sneer at that famous description of Irish soccer fans as "the best supporters in the world." But for my money they're still up at the top of the league. 8,000 of them shelled out to follow the team to Bratislava and Prague and sang their hearts out both during and after the games. You don't see that kind of fervour in many countries.

Yet their passion is not being rewarded. The Stan apologists might try and discern some glory in one more narrow away defeat. But the gallant defeat is easy enough to achieve. On Wednesday night Albania managed to hold Holland scoreless till they lost to a Ruud Van Nistlerooy goal in injury-time. And Kazakhstan must have been delighted to battle back for a 2-2 draw with Belgium. But we are not Albania. And we are not Kazakhstan, (though sometimes we seem to have Borat as manager.)

Scotland have showed what can be achieved by a limited team which is well managed. Elsewhere in the qualifying, Poland top Group A with Finland in second place, Portugal trailing behind them. Croatia are the unbeaten leaders of England's group. Greece top Group C, while Romania lead Holland in Group G. None of those sides are exactly coming down with world class players.

Forget all that populist crap about managers not being able to go on to the pitch and do the job for the players. Managers matter. Look at the miracle Lawrie Sanchez achieved with Northern Ireland and how quickly everything returned to ashes when he was replaced by Nigel Worthington. Nobody, but nobody, argues that Steve Staunton is an addition to the Irish set-up. The best his supporters can do is claim that he's not an actual hindrance. Is that the best we can do? Or is it time to search for a manager who actually brings something extra to the table, the kind of manager we don't have to spend time apologising and feeling sorry for?

I'm not FAI bashing here. That's tired old nonsense which helps no-one. And I'm aware that you feel the Association doesn't get enough credit for the good work it does at grassroots level. I accept that this work is being done and also that you're responsible for a great deal of it. But the fact is that the parlous state of the international side reflects badly on those efforts and poisons the whole atmosphere surrounding soccer in this country. It's not just the Liveline loudmouths who think Steve Staunton should go, it's people who genuinely have the best interests of Irish soccer at heart.

The great English novelist EM Forster once said: "If I had the choice between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the courage to betray my country." Those are noble sentiments but you don't have that luxury. Steve Staunton happens to be a friend of yours but you are charged with the well-being of soccer in this country. If you want to behave in an honourable manner to your friend, I applaud your integrity. But you'll have to be honourable on your own time. The really honourable thing to do in those circumstances would be to step aside and let someone who can make this difficult decision take over.

And for the sake of the 8,000 in Bratislava and Prague, of the battered Richard Dunne, the brilliant Kevin Doyle and the brave Paul McShane, of everyone training and organising teams at grassroots level and of the kids who play on those teams and would like to see their heroes play in the big summer tournaments, do the right thing John. Please.