Cathal Dervan is to leave his position as Sports Editor of the Irish Sun to take up the new role of Director of Public Relations and Communications at the FAI.
Cathal will join the Association in April switching from a lifetime of sitting on the other side of the table in terms of media scrutiny of Irish football and sport in general.
We guess he will have to change his twitter profile banner from the current holding aloft of the Liam McCarthy Cup to one of a more bigger ball and eleven a side variety.
“These are exciting times for the game in Ireland and for the development of our sport and I am delighted to welcome Cathal to the executive management team at the FAI in this newly restructured role,” said FAI Chief Executive John Delaney.
“There is a lot to look forward to about Irish football with the appointments of Mick McCarthy and Stephen Kenny as managers of our Senior Men’s and Under-21 teams.
“As we move forward we have recently agreed a new ticketing arrangement with our supporters ahead of the European qualifiers.
“We also welcome the recent debate on domestic football ahead of the return of the SSE Airtricity League of Ireland.”
“Our grassroots family continues to grow and we look forward to the staging of events such as the UEFA Under-17 European Championships in May, the EURO 2021 qualifying series for our Republic of Ireland Women’s Senior team, the hosting of four games at EURO 2020 and the Centenary celebrations in 2021.”
“We are also about to introduce new governance procedures at an EGM in early February and how we communicate all of this going forward is very important to the Association.”
“I am really excited about this new position and cannot wait to lead the excellent communications team at the FAI,” added Dervan.
“Football has been my passion since the age of seven and I am really enthused by the opportunity to work with Irish football from Grassroots level all the way up to the SSE Airtricity League and the Senior Men’s International Team.”
The media team has been led by Gareth Maher on an interim basis since Ian Mallon stepped away from the role in 2017. He oversaw the trials and tribulations of a difficult twelve months but there is a renewed optimism now around the FAI, and hopefully better days and better news stories ahead.
Dervan joins Karen Campion at the Executive Management after she was recently promoted to Director of Business Partnerships and Strategy. Mark Russell also joined the FAI in the role of Commercial Director.