STEPHEN BRADLEY SAYS he has no regrets about his comments regarding referee Damien MacGraith that have earned him a one-match touchline ban.

The Shamrock Rovers boss will be in the stands for the Premier Division clash with Shelbourne on Sunday following the FAI’s decision to punish him for deriding the official as the worst in the league.

Independently of this controversy, Bradley also revealed how he started the process earlier in the year of setting up a managers’ association for the League of Ireland.

Speaking ahead of Rovers’ opening UEFA Conference League game with APOEL in the new league phase format, Bradley insisted he stands by his comments after seeing his side “hard done by” with MacGraith’s controversial award of a penalty to Derry City that helped them secure a 1-1 draw last month.

“I think, I said what I said, I stand by it. I’ll back these players, they cross the white line for me and this club. They give everything on this pitch. Sometimes it’s enough, sometimes it’s not but they leave everything out there,” Bradley said.

“They’re an incredible group of men and when I feel they are being hard done by, it’s my job to stand up for them and defend them and I’ll never stop doing that. If the people in power and authorities think I’ve crossed the line, they obviously have because they’ve suspended me.

“It’s my job to protect these men whenever possible. They give everything on the pitch for me and the club and like I said, I think the decision was the decision, incredible, it’s my job to speak out and protect them and stand up for them,” he added.

“I don’t agree with us as managers and coaches not having an opinion and voice in this country. We don’t have our own platform, hence why we speak to the media. If I don’t speak to you on Friday or after the game when it happened, it’s not talked about from our point of view as a club.

“That’s the reason why I’m in the process of trying to set up a league managers’ association but we have no voice, we have no platform. Like I said, I am protecting my players and I won’t ever stop doing that.”

It had been previously been floated by managers to set up a body to protect their interests but never got off the ground, and the Rovers boss feels the time is right to put something in place that is worthwhile.

“As managers and coaches in the league now, we need to be open to helping the next generation of coaches and the current generation that are out of work. Sometimes in Ireland when you are not in a job or you are not coaching, you are forgotten about pretty quickly and there are not really the levels to go down and manage.

“I think us as managers in the league owe it to the other managers who have gone before us and who are coming after us that that’s not the case, and that we can open doors for them. We can give them access on a weekly basis, we can keep them involved in the game and keep them around for when their time comes again, that they are in a good place.

“There is loads more that can happen right down to grassroots level. But again, that’s the layers that come on top. First of all we need to understand how we are setting it up and what the main reasons for it are initially, and then there is so much that we can learn from the LMA in England and feed off that as we go.

“It’s just that I want it to be meaningful. I don’t want it to be something that’s just thrown together and something that filters away after a year or two, or a few months. I want something in place.

“I know there are people before me who have looked at it. I want it to be recognised on many different levels and to do that we need to make sure that it’s done right. Again, I’m not sure if it happens this year or next year, but I’ll continue to work to try and make it happen, because I do believe we owe it to the next generation of coaches and managers who are doing their A Licence, B Licence, Pro Licence; we owe it to them.”