The Finn Harps manager, Ollie Horgan, has hit out at the rescheduling of a game against Shamrock Rovers for this Monday night.
Harps will travel to Tallaght Stadium on Monday to take on The Hoops in a game that was originally due to take place in May.
The game has been pulled forward due to Tallaght hosting games in the UEFA European Under-17 Championships.
However, Horgan and Harps are irate that a number of alternatives were proposed only to be, the Harps boss said, ‘met with deaf ears’.
“We have made suggestions and made possibilities to solve the problem of their pitch being unavailable, but the powers that be have continually ignored them,” Horgan said.
Harps first made contact in mid-December following the publication of the 2019 fixture list and have even met League of Ireland chiefs on the matter.
“There has been communication through email, meetings and phonecalls,” Horgan said.
We flagged this early and it’s not of our doing or problem that the game has been put on a Monday night.
“If it was a problem with the facility at our side of the house, we would understand it. We made suggestions of reversing two fixtures that gives no-one an advantage or disadvantage but they were met with deaf ears.
“Even as simple as a week’s grace, where having to get time off on two Mondays in a row. The majority of players and staff are the same. But no, it is as it is with no leeway.”
It will be the second Monday in a row for Harps – with most of their players part-time and in other employment – to head to the capital having been at St Patrick’s Athletic this week.
Harps, who have drawn two of their opening three games, against Dundalk and Pat’s, host Sligo Rovers on Friday night before going to Tallaght.
Horgan said: “Having to go to Tallaght on Monday night, we’re not happy about it. There is no point in us mixing our words.
“There is no good time to go to Tallaght, even if we had five weeks to prepare. We’re not saying that if we don’t get a result in Tallaght on Monday that it’s because we’ve played five games in 14 days – or will have by the time we play Cork next Friday.
“We, whether we like it or not, are going to Tallaght on Monday. I don’t think every club in the league, if they’d been in the same position, would be going to Tallaght on Monday.”
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