Irish boxing chiefs have denied a campaign to force the country’s most successful sports coach out of his job.

Joe Christle, chair of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association (IABA), said Billy Walsh was already the highest paid member of its staff and agreeing to a new €1.6million pay package would have been “reckless or irresponsible”.

The IABA offered a glowing report on their relations with Walsh despite the evident division between the top trainer and the sports’ senior administrators over nine months of increasingly difficult contract negotiations.

Mr Christle told the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications about the fallout: “We wanted Billy to stay.”

He added: “It’s a source of huge regret that Billy decided to resign but any suggestion that any director wanted Billy to leave is totally and utterly rejected

“The suggestion that he is the victim of a campaign to oust him from his job is untrue.”

John Treacy, Sport Ireland chief executive and former Olympic medallist, rejected the IABA’s claims that the contract talks were primarily about a huge pay rise for Walsh.

Instead he said Walsh’s paramount demands were in connection with non-financial matters, some of which were identified in a briefing paper written after the London 2012 Olympics.

Mr Treacy said there was evidence of tension between the Irish High Performance Boxing Unit, which Walsh spearheaded for several years, and the leadership of the IABA.

Walsh left for the US last week where he is to sign up to run the women’s programme in advance of the Rio Olympics.

There have been claims and counter-claims over the breakdown in relations between the hugely successful coach and the IABA with reports suggesting he wanted more autonomy to select teams, speak to the media and restore allowances for coaches at overseas events.

Walsh is now regarded as the best sports coach Ireland has produced taking boxers to European, Olympic and most recently world glory with Belfast bantamweight Michael Conlan emulating the feats of Katie Taylor by becoming the first Irish man to bring gold home from a boxing World Championships over a fortnight ago.

On resigning as head coach Walsh described being left in tears by the failure to strike a deal to stay on as the Ireland coach.

Earlier today, Minister of State for Sport Michael Ring, said he hoped the accounts given at today's Oireachtas Committee would put this issue to bed once and for all.