Michael O’Neill has signed a new four-year contract to extend his stay as Northern Ireland boss just two weeks after turning down an offer from Blackburn Rovers.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill, 56, finished the season juggling dual roles with Northern Ireland and Blackburn and entered talks with the Championship club over extending his stay at Ewood Park after guiding them to safety.<\/p>\n
But having turned down Rovers<\/a> to stay in international football O\u2019Neill has finalized a deal with the IFA that runs until 2032.<\/p>\n “This is a role that means a great deal to me,” O\u2019Neill said.<\/p>\n “I continue to believe strongly in the potential of this group of players and the direction we are moving in. There is a lot of work ahead, but I am excited by the future.”<\/p>\n O\u2019Neill is in his second spell as Northern Ireland boss, with a friendly draw against Wales in March his 104th match in charge.<\/p>\n The highlight of his tenure was leading the nation into Euro 2016, and there are now genuine hopes that a young, talented squad is capable of returning to a major tournament at the Euros in two years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n O\u2019Neill\u2019s commitment will be welcomed by the Irish FA, who had feared losing him for a second time when he accepted the role with Blackburn in February \u2013 an announcement that stunned many Northern Ireland fans as it came just a few weeks before their World Cup qualifying play-off away to Italy.<\/p>\n O\u2019Neill, first appointed as Northern Ireland boss in 2011, left for Stoke in early 2020, but returned to the role in 2022.<\/p>\n Announcing his new deal, IFA president Conrad Kirkwood said: “Michael has made a massive contribution to Northern Ireland so far. I am delighted that he will continue that work into the future and I look forward to more memorable achievements for the team in the future.”<\/p>\n News of the deal was announced on the day that O\u2019Neill is due to name his squad for next month\u2019s friends, with Northern Ireland due to face Guinea in Cadiz, Spain, before traveling to Lille to take on World Cup-bound France.<\/p>\n Watch Republic of Ireland v Qatar on Thursday from 7.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app<\/p>\n Watch the Champions League final, PSG v Arsenal, on Saturday from 4pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app<\/p>\n \n Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael O’Neill has signed a new four-year contract to extend his stay as Northern Ireland boss just two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-469216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469216","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=469216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}