ÉAMONN Fitzmaurice has revealed that he wasn’t the only person in the Kerry set-up to receive anonymous hate mail during this year’s championship and he has told of his disgust that one player was targeted with a nasty letter telling him to “jump off a cliff” and to take some of his team-mates with him.
Fitzmaurice said that incident crossed the line and one of the reasons he quit the job was to offer a greater layer of protection to the younger players.
The Lixnaw man, who walked away with two years of his contract remaining, said got used to receiving abusive letters but targeting players was taking it too far.
“It was more what was in the letter that annoyed me. I felt it was gone too far,” the Pobail Scoil Corca Dhuibhne principal told Newstalk’s Off The Ball.
“The player was told in the letter to jump off a cliff and take three or four other players with him” he revealed, adding that the other players were also named in the hate mail.
“The lads are amateurs. There a good as bunch as you can meet. They’re so dedicated and they’re so committed to the Kerry jersey, it’s unbelievable. I’d always defend them to a hilt,” he said.
Fitzmaurice said: “I didn’t tell that player that I was going to discuss this. I wouldn’t like to name him. For the same player, it would be water of a duck’s back. It didn’t bother him”.
But, he stressed: “I thought it was poor form, to be honest about it. I think it’s definitely time to shout stop when players are getting very strongly worded letters like that.”
The now retired Kerry boss said he has a collection of anonymous letters daring back to 2013 that he had never mentioned it to anyone.
He also said he had made up his mind at the start of the season to resign at the close of this year’s championship as it would allow chairman Tim Murphy the time and opportunity to bring his own man in.
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