Denise O'Sullivan has doubled down on her support for Colin Healy as the fallout from his departure as Republic of Ireland assistant coach continues.
Healy claims he was led to believe he would stay on the coaching ticket even if the Girls in Green lost their Euro 2025 play-off against Wales in December, which they ultimately did.
FAI director of football Marc Canham insists this was not the case, and that there were consistent lines of communication with Healy about his future.
O'Sullivan was the first high-profile name to publicly back Healy, telling Irish Fan TV earlier this month: "Coaches being let go, that’s normal, it’s part of the game, but I think it was the manner it was done in. I think it was disrespectful, I think it lacked class, I think it lacked compassion."
Ahead of tomorrow’s Nations League clash against Slovenia, the midfielder stood by those comments.
"The situation is over but I voiced my opinion weeks ago because of how strongly I felt about the situation," said O’Sullivan.
"I 100% support Colin. He was great for the team. Such a genuine man, a great coach and ultimately it wasn’t good enough in my eyes."
Asked if she had spoken to the FAI directly, O’Sullivan replied: "Yes, a few times."
Aoife Mannion, Stephen Bradley and Katie McCabe have all weighed in behind Healy over the course of the last week, but there’s been plenty of praise for the new management team too.
Carla Ward’s reign began with a scrappy 1-0 defeat of Turkey on Friday; now she's plotting another victory in Koper against a decent Slovenia side.
"There is a new energy about the team, I think," added O’Sullivan, who was named player of the match against the Turks.
"Having Carla in has been really good. We are obviously getting to know her, and it is going to take longer to understand what Carla wants.
"It's not going to happen overnight. The way Carla wants to play is going to take a lot of games for us to be able to do that. But it is exciting that she wants us to play football. We have the players to do it.
"Lots of us are playing that sort of football at their clubs, at a really high level.
"The younger players coming through need a lot of time together to be able to do it. The sessions have been great this week working on that. It is going to take months, even a year to be able to play that type of football. But I am really excited."
