![\"Gabriel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/4SRYOOHQ5FBVTCPU6U7NVGKKLU.jpg\")
Gabriel Bannigan with Monaghan fans after the All-Ireland quarter-final against Louth. Photograph: James Lawlor\/Inpho <\/p>\nGabriel Bannigan has shed more light on his departure from his role as manager of the Monaghan football team, saying \u201cthere were dark arts at play\u201d behind the scenes with the county board. Bannigan stepped down late on Thursday night after two season in the job but made it clear in his statement that he wasn\u2019t doing so by choice and making reference to goalposts having been moved. Speaking to The Irish Times, he expanded on his view of the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is wondering what I meant by movement of the goalposts,\u201d he said. \u201cI tried to capture everything in my statement, honestly and diplomatically. I sat down with the county board about six weeks ago and they were unanimous in terms of me staying on for a third year. <\/p>\n
\u201cI said to them about certain changes I wanted to make to the backroom team and they gave their full support to basically go on and do it. Which I did. I spent five or six weeks doing that. <\/p>\n
\u201cI went back to them last week and sat down to go through where I was at and what my proposal was. And it was very clear to me that it was a different room now. It was very clear to me that the support that was there five or six weeks ago wasn\u2019t there now. That\u2019s what I mean by moving of the goalposts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so the conditions are not right for me to continue. Now, what caused goalposts to move is the obvious next question. And I don\u2019t know. Genuinely, I don\u2019t know everything that happened. There\u2019s lots of rumours that I\u2019m hearing, bits and pieces, but I don\u2019t know exactly what the truth is. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s obvious that there were some dark arts at play that caused that shift. And when I talk about dark arts, there\u2019s all sorts of rumours about people being lined up, certain names being mentioned, etc, etc. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s any truth in any of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Never the sort of GAA figure to court controversy, Bannigan is clearly hurt by the process by which his time with Monaghan has ended. He was a selector under Vinny Corey for two years before taking over the role full-time in September 2024. Both of his seasons in charge ended with defeats in the All-Ireland quarter-final \u2013 a creditable one against Donegal in 2025 and a disastrous one against 14-man Louth this summer. <\/p>\n
Gabriel Bannigan with Monaghan fans after the All-Ireland quarter-final against Louth. Photograph: James Lawlor\/Inpho <\/p>\n
It is clear now that the Louth defeat left Bannigan vulnerable. Monaghan went into that game without their most important player in Rory Beggan but when Louth lost Se\u00e1n Callaghan to a red card in the eighth minute, the odds on Monaghan making a second All-Ireland semi-final in four seasons shortened considerably. <\/p>\n
Failing to see out that game meant there were always likely to be changes in the off-season, which Bannigan himself tried to instigate with a refresh of his backroom. Sources in Monaghan have suggested that there was a cohort of players looking for wholesale changes at the top although that is by no means a unanimous view across the panel. Bannigan\u2019s nephew Miche\u00e1l is the team captain and there was significant support for management from within the playing staff.<\/p>\n
Either way, the mood moved against Bannigan somewhere in the past six weeks. It has led to a messy ending, including the unusual situation on Thursday night whereby the Monaghan county board statement on the situation contained quotes from the departing manager criticising the county board itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s honesty,\u201d says Bannigan now. \u201cIt\u2019s not criticism. It\u2019s honesty. Like, the goalposts did move. The support that I had five or six weeks ago, I didn\u2019t have in the last week. That\u2019s just honesty. Well, maybe it is a little bit of criticism. <\/p>\n
\u201cCould this have been handled better if they didn\u2019t want me to stay on? Why the hell waste my time for the last five or six weeks? You\u2019re either backing your manager or you\u2019re not. And that\u2019s what I said to them. I said, \u2018Look, you\u2019re either backing me or I go.\u2019 But I didn\u2019t want to go. I didn\u2019t want it to be like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Monaghan county board have been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabriel Bannigan has shed more light on his departure from his role as manager of the Monaghan football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,42187,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-607750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-monaghan-gaa","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}