FAI High-Performance Director Ruud Dokter - perhaps better known as the best-named administrator in football, with the possible exception of Tokyo Sexwale - is taking steps to turn Irish football into Ajax. Daniel McDonnell of the Irish Independent today broke the news that former Irish internationals Damien Duff, Keith Andrews, Stephen McPhail and Mark Kinsella have been appointed to coaching roles with the Irish underage squads.
Duff will coach the U-15s and McPhail the U-16s while Andrews will help out with the Under-17s and Kinsella coaching the U-21s. Dokter told the Irish Independent that the former players will face review in a year which will ideally end in the parties extending their involvement in the Irish set-up.
Duff and McPhail are both training the underage squads with Shamrock Rovers, while Andrews has been coaching at MK Dons following retirement. Dokter told the Irish Independent that the FAI have a duty of care to help facilitate the development of the coaching careers of their former players:
They want to be involved and we have to facilitate that - that's an obligation on the FAI as well, to facilitate coaches who want to have a career and have had great success as players and done a lot for the country.
I want to extend this process, and it has to work for both sides. It's not a contract. We'll review it after a year and if everybody is happy, we will continue. It's a long-term commitment from my side. It's not a closed window. They will be working in conjunction with the good coaches and managers that are there and they don't have a problem.
The involvement of former Irish internationals in the underage set-up is a hugely encouraging move by the FAI, if slightly belated. In 2013, Robbie Keane publicly criticised the lack of opportunities for former Irish internationals to take up underage coaching roles within the association, and Lee Carsley has taken up a coaching role with Brentford having not ben offered a role by the FAI despite his offer to work for free.
The employment of Duff, McPhail, Kinsella and Andrews is Dokter's latest move to improve the talent line to senior level. Another policy is to streamline the underage domestic leagues in Ireland, with the Under-19 and Under-17 national leagues likely to become the exclusive preserve of League of Ireland clubs, as all clubs must have infrastructure to meet the FAI's demands, which would take the onus away from academy clubs like Home Farm and St Kevin's Boys to produce players.
