Questions over Trap operation

A manager based in England or Ireland could not have expected to undergo an operation of such magnitude while staying under the public radar

Paul Rowan, Published: 9 January 2011

AN IRATE reader of one national newspaper accused it of ageism during the week over its coverage of Giovanni Trapattoni’s operation on the carotid artery in his neck, but realism might be the more accurate description.

Questions concerning the health of the Irish management team are not a matter of prurient curiosity, but of genuine public interest, as long as the matter is handled respectfully.

You don’t need to go back too far to find a distressing example of seeing a member of the Irish management team struggling not only with the demands of the job, but with his fading health.

On a cold November night back in 2006, the sight of Sir Bobby Robson out in the open under the old West Stand at Lansdowne Road, one of his arms in a sling because of paralysis, filled all those who saw him with concern. Especially given that he had recently returned from another operation to remove cancerous growths, the disease that would eventually take his life three years later at 76.

Robson loved working — and nobody would deny his right to do so — but his time as Ireland’s assistant manager can’t be regarded as a successful one and not just because the results were poor. The feeling persists that it was a job too far for a man whose passion for the game knew no bounds and is matched only by a few, among them Giovanni Trapattoni.

The Italian, aged 71, is clearly in a far more robust physical condition than Robson was when he came over to do a job for Ireland, as anybody who has seen the Italian’s workouts on the training pitch will testify.

But that doesn’t preclude the media from asking questions of his health, even if it is a cue for the politically correct brigade to start penning their letters to the editor. Furthermore Trapattoni — and possibly the FAI, depending where the truth lies here — miscalculated by initially trying to keep the operation under wraps.

Apart from a brief statement from Trapattoni and a radio interview given by the Ireland team doctor, Alan Byrne, the FAI has refused to comment on matters concerning the manager’s health.

The reticence is understandable given the way this episode has been handled. Reports that Trapattoni had suffered a stroke first emerged in the Milan press and were then repeated in Ireland.

The damage was already done by the time the denials of a stroke were made by the FAI and Trapattoni, and the question remains why we weren’t told about the operation in the first place when it clearly was something more than routine. The FAI said, on RTE News at One, that they were not aware of any recent medical issue and a spokesperson said that he did not have a stroke.

So either Trapattoni didn’t tell the FAI or, as some sources in the association have indicated, he told certain individuals and it was decided the whole matter should go no further.

Bad decision either way, but an understandable one. Back in August, before the friendly against Argentina, Trapattoni was admitted to the Mater hospital with stomach pains, which we were told was caused by scar tissue from a previous, unspecified, operation. Did that operation also take place during Trapattoni’s tenure?