Louth GAA chairman Peter Fitzpatrick has backtracked on controversial comments he made about the League of Ireland.
The independent TD angered many fans of the league after claiming in an interview with The Dundalk Democrat that the 'majority of LOI clubs can't afford to pay their players'.
But Fitzpatrick claims the comments were taken out of context.
Speaking on LMFM this morning, he said: "I apologise with my whole heart if people took me up the wrong way."
He added: "When you have no gate money coming in, sponsorship is cut and everything else, every sport, whether it's GAA, soccer or rugby, are under severe pressure. All sports are struggling to pay their wages at the moment.
"I'm a big supporter of the League of Ireland. I regularly go to see Dundalk playing. We're very lucky in Louth that we have Drogheda and Dundalk."
Drogheda United chairman Conor Hoey described the former Louth manager's initial comments as 'Trumpian', but added he was happy to hear him clarify them.
Reacting to Fitzpatrick's interview, Hoey commented: "He said he was quoted out of context and he was clearly backtracking there, but it was good to hear him apologise.
"More importantly it's good to hear him talk so enthusiastically about the League of Ireland. It's good to hear him talk enthusiastically about Dundalk and Drogheda and the upcoming Louth derby that we're going to have here.
"What we had an issue with is what we saw quoted in the newspaper which was his comment that said the majority of League of Ireland clubs can't afford to pay their players and there isn't one professional player in the League of Ireland who has not been paid. The PFAI came out yesterday and said that."
The Drogs are back in the Premier Division after winning the First Division last season and Hoey admits everyone involved with the club can't wait for the new campaign to kick-off.
He told The Irish Mirror: "We're excited. We've got a great squad. We're doing player development programmes for all our players in association with the PFAI, focusing on education and careers after sport and things like that which is a really important thing about how we look after our players.
"I'm launching that this morning with the PFAI and that's a really new good sport story about how we're trying to bring more professionalism into League of Ireland clubs so there's a lot of really good things happening.
"Of course there was a time when League of Ireland clubs have been a basket case over the years. We all know every club has had their troubles, but generally most clubs are really, really well run now.
"At Drogheda we've taken the debt down significantly over the last coupe of years. We've got a great bunch of people running the club."
