{"id":451134,"date":"2026-05-16T00:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/451134\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T00:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:59:10","slug":"heimir-hallgrimsson-suggests-motive-behind-dundee-united-decision-to-allow-will-ferry-to-link-up-with-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/451134\/","title":{"rendered":"Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson suggests motive behind Dundee United decision to allow Will Ferry to link up with Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dundee United defender is set to win his first senior Ireland cap when the Boys in Green face Grenada on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

Will Ferry(Image: INPHO\/Ryan Byrne)<\/p>\n

Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson has come up with a theory behind Dundee United\u2019s willingness to release Will Ferry for international duty.<\/p>\n

The full-back has been a late addition to Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s Ireland<\/a> squad ahead of Saturday\u2019s friendly against Grenada. His arrival was confirmed on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

His Scottish Premiership<\/a> side had declined to release him, but ahead of Saturday\u2019s season finale against St Mirren they cannot move any higher or lower in the table.<\/p>\n

With nothing at stake other than pride, the uncapped Ferry has been allowed to travel to Spain for the friendly in Murcia.<\/p>\n

Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> explained that after Cardiff defender Joel Bagan was ruled out through injury, he wanted to bulk up his options on the left-hand-side.<\/p>\n

Ferry\u2019s club agreed to let him go, then changed their mind and eventually did a second u-turn.<\/p>\n

As for Dundee United\u2019s late decision to allow Ferry to travel, the Ireland manager wondered if it had something to do with his potential departure from Tannadice this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was because we had Joel Bagan and we needed a left-back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat were the options? I don\u2019t know why but Dundee United called us and said he would be available. Then we were just happy because we needed one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen they lost the game and the coach kept him until three days ago and then they released him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he is on the move, so they probably wanted him to have a cap, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to sign up to our sport newsletter, bringing you the top stories and biggest headlines from Ireland and beyond<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dundee United defender is set to win his first senior Ireland cap when the Boys in Green…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[195876,4700,61,60,43,57217,15012],"class_list":["post-451134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cardiff-city-fc","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-national-football-team","tag-scottish-premiership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451134","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=451134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}