Jack O’Connor intervened to have a poster removed from a Kerry town that depicted him in a wedding dress – with All-Ireland final rival Andy Moran as the bridesmaid.
The image appeared in Kilorglin on Thursday, with the tagline, ‘Jack, best of luck on your big day! Andy … always the bridesmaid!’
It appeared to be part of a marketing ruse by a company, but it was one that left O’Connor unamused when he addressed the controversy at Kerry’s media day yesterday.
‘I didn’t know anything until the image was sent to me Friday morning,’ said the Kerry chief.
‘Obviously the man was trying to be funny, but I didn’t see too much fun in it, least of all myself in a wedding dress.
‘I rang a friend of mine to ask did he know who put it up and could he do something about getting it taken down.
‘He told the person responsible for it that I wasn’t happy and lo and behold it was taken down.
‘That’s all I know, I try to stay away from social media but it kind of took off then. People were commenting.’
Jack O’Connor intervened to have a poster removed from a Kerry town that depicted him in a wedding dress – with All-Ireland final rival Andy Moran as the bridesmaid
And O’Connor’s displeasure was obvious, not only because of how he was depicted himself but because of what he said was a lack of respect to Moran and Mayo.
‘The only opinion I have about it is it wasn’t in good taste,’ he said.
‘I was brought up in the Johnny Culloty school of Kerry football,’ he said, referencing the late great Kerry figure, who was a selector in O’Connor’s first management team and the veteran of multiple All-Ireland campaigns, ‘that you have to carry yourself with a certain style in Kerry.
‘There’s a massive tradition of Kerry being a good brand, backed by a great company in the Kerry Group and we treat all our opponents with respect.
‘We fight like hell on the field, but we treat opponents and those involved with them with respect and I thought that was disrespectful to a great footballing county and a great man in Andy Moran.
‘He was a great player himself and has transferred that enthusiasm and toughness into his players.
‘So, I just thought it was in bad taste, but thankfully the guy took it down.
‘Maybe he didn’t mean too much by it but it was just in bad taste, just doesn’t represent us well as a county.’
