Hot Press launches petition for Trapattoni's resignation

Everyone is aware at this stage that there is a crisis in Irish football.

Three desperately demoralising defeats in the Euro 2012 finals, were followed by an appalling performance against Kazakhstan in our opening World Cup qualifying game – where we were extraordinarily lucky to snatch a 2-1 victory in the dying seconds – and then a 6-1 humiliation at the hands of Germany in Dublin.

As has widely been observed, the subsequent victory over the Faroe Islands, ranked 158th in the world, changes nothing.

If a manager takes the credit for a team's successes then he must also accept responsibility for their failures. And it is not just that Ireland have been beaten in four out of six competitive games since the start of the summer. It is the manner of those defeats, with the team appearing confused, rudderless and lacking in fighting spirit, that has devastated the Irish football community. From the fans' perspective, the decline of the team has been excruciatingly painful to watch.

Add to this an inexplicable unwillingness on the part of the manager to personally make the effort to watch Irish players in live action for their clubs; and a complete lack of interest in Irish football at a grassroots or domestic level, and you have a potentially disastrous cocktail for the future of football here.

"Giovanni Trapattoni has publicly stated that he should remain in position because he believes that the majority of ordinary supporters still support him as manager," Hot Press editor Niall Stokes said. "We do not believe this to be the case. The purpose of this petition is to definitively clarify the situation in that regard for him and hopefully to help spur the regime change that is desperately needed, so that the job of managing the Ireland team can be approached in the right, thorough, hard-working, conscientious and integrated way by a new manager."

To read the full text, and sign the petition, click [link]www.hotpress.com/trapattonipetition[/link].