Former Dundalk manager Filippo Giovagnoli could be set for a League of Ireland return in one of the new academy director roles.<\/p>\n
In one of several bizarre decisions during the ownership reign of US-based Peak 6, the Italian was handed his first senior managerial job in 2020.<\/p>\n
He took over the league champions after Vinny Perth was sacked amid claims of interference from the club\u2019s hierarchy.<\/p>\n
Although Giovagnoli only lasted nine months at Oriel Park, he oversaw the team\u2019s FAI Cup triumph and a lucrative progression to the group phase of the Europa League.<\/p>\n
Dundalk were fined \u20ac50,000 by Uefa for alleged \u2018shadow coaching\u2019 as Giovagnoli wasn\u2019t permitted to be in the technical area due to lack of Pro License qualification.<\/p>\n
Giovagnoli (55) has since worked as technical director at Swiss second division club Yverdon Sport FC but has emerged through the FAI\u2019s first phase of interviews for the academy jobs.<\/p>\n
Irish football broke new ground last October by being awarded \u20ac3m of State funding to kickstart a club-led academy model.<\/p>\n
The grant, part of a multi-annual promise by the Government, is designed to equip clubs with the personnel and infrastructure to fulfil their remit of developing players in a post Brexit era whereby talent cannot join UK clubs until their 18th birthday.<\/p>\n
The Department of Sport, through their agency Sport Ireland, have set strict qualification criteria.<\/p>\n
In the first instance, the FAI invited applications in December for the vacancies of academy director and head of coaching.<\/p>\n
Funding for the posts of \u20ac43,500 and \u20ac38,500 per annum respectively is available to each club for employing the staff on three-year contracts.<\/p>\n
Those 54 interviews for the academy directors have concluded and it\u2019s understood Giovagnoli has made the cut.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s believed the list also includes former Paris Saint-Germain youth coach C\u00e9dric Cattenoy.<\/p>\n
Among the other successful candidates are ex-League of Ireland managers Keith Long, Stephen Henderson, Dave Rogers and Adrian Carberry.<\/p>\n
Former Cork City captain Johnny Dunleavy is another to have hurdled the initial stage while ex-Wexford and CK United coach Yvonne McGrath is the sole female.<\/p>\n
According to the League of Ireland, \u201ccandidates who successfully progress beyond Stage One will be required to participate in a further club-specific recruitment and selection process with the relevant League of Ireland Club(s) prior to any formal offer of employment.\u201d Clubs must interview at least three members of the panel.<\/p>\n
Initial grants are available from next month, but clubs can decide to delay recruitment until applications for the panel reopen in June.<\/p>\n
Successful candidates will be employed directly by the respective League of Ireland club.<\/p>\n
Another process is ongoing for the head coaching positions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Dundalk manager Filippo Giovagnoli could be set for a League of Ireland return in one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,2539,43],"class_list":["post-359430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-league-of-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359430","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=359430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}