{"id":295725,"date":"2026-02-13T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295725\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T09:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:00:11","slug":"michael-oneill-northern-ireland-manager-to-join-blackburn-rovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295725\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael O&#8217;Neill: Northern Ireland manager to join Blackburn Rovers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Northern Ireland manager Michael O&#8217;Neill is set to take over at Championship club Blackburn Rovers, initially in a joint role until the end of the season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Northern Ireland face Italy in a World Cup play-off semi-final in March and then either Wales or Bosnia-Herzegovina in a final or friendly, depending on the result in Bergamo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">O&#8217;Neill is expected to be involved for both matches and, if Northern Ireland qualify against the odds, for the World Cup finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 56-year-old could then take over as manager at Blackburn, who are in the Championship&#8217;s relegation zone, on a permanent basis. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former Northern Ireland midfielder Damien Johnson, who has been in interim charge at Ewood Park, is expected to work alongside O&#8217;Neill at the Lancashire club until the end of this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If a deal with the Irish FA is agreed quickly, O&#8217;Neill could be in charge for Saturday&#8217;s game against Queens Park Rangers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">O&#8217;Neill attended Thursday&#8217;s Nations League draw &#8211; where Northern Ireland were grouped with Hungary, Ukraine and Georgia &#8211; but did not speak to the media. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland manager Michael O&#8217;Neill is set to take over at Championship club Blackburn Rovers, initially in a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-295725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295725","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=295725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}