FAI pressing ahead with new appointments for senior jobs

The FAI pressed ahead on Monday morning with internal advertisements for a number of key roles leaving several senior managers within the organisation in the position of effectively having to re-apply for their own jobs, while it transpired that neither the role nor title of senior international manager, Stephen Kenny, is to change after all.

Ads were posted for four positions in the newly reorganised and numerically reduced executive team in Abbotstown with applications invited for Chief Operations Officer, Commercial and Marketing Director, Grassroots Director and League of Ireland Director.

The four posts are respectively held at present by Rea Walshe, Mark Russell, Tom O’Shea and Fran Gavin, with the latter’s brief as Competitions Director taking in the Airtricity League.

The reorganisation has been undertaken after a review of the association’s structures by HR consultant Yvonne Clancy and it is suggested that it is to be completed very quickly with the advertisements listing the commencement dates as “immediately”.

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There has been some surprise that the organisation is pressing ahead with it five months into the six-month term of interim CEO Gary Owens and his deputy Niall Quinn and with the process of hiring a permanent chief executive in its very early stages.

It has been taken by many people both inside and outside the organisation as a firm indication of Owens' confidence that he will be staying on for the long term although he denied having even having made a decision on whether to apply for the job in an interview with The Irish Times last week.

Constitutional changes

Owens said, however, that the management restructure, like the constitutional changes he is set to push over the coming weeks, were a part of his brief when he came to the organisation at the start of the year. Despite this, there is believed to have been unhappiness on the part of a number of board members over the way the changes have been proceeded with. This is understood to have been under discussion on Monday evening.

It has been reported that Clancy found that there was no ongoing need for the role of deputy CEO and there was speculation over the weekend that Quinn would be accommodated either in the commercial or League of Ireland roles - both areas in which he has been involved over recent months although there is no indication of which, if any, he would want to put himself forward for.

Despite the apparent dropping of the formal role, the opening line of the job specification for the League of Ireland job originally suggested that the person to land that position will also serve as deputy CEO when the chief executive is absent.

This was changed later in the day, however, with the deputy CEO reference omitted when the advertisement was reissued on Monday afternoon.

The job specification for the League of Ireland job goes on to say that the successful candidate will be expected to establish and lead “a new focussed unit” at the association and work with stakeholders in order to, among other things, improve clubs’ facilities, financial sustainability and underage development structures.

It is suggested that the ideal candidate will be an “experienced commercially focussed senior leader with a strong track record in delivering business results and implementing change gained at senior leadership team level” and should have a “relevant business qualification”.

The commercial brief, meanwhile, seems set to take in communications in future which had previously been a separate department, one currently headed up by the former football journalist and sports editor at the Irish Sun, Cathal Dervan.

The redefined Commercial and Marketing Director, it is stated, will lead a team with responsibility for “sales, marketing, distribution, events, sponsorship, insights and communications”.

Redefined

The Directors for Operations, High Performance and Finance – Barry Gleeson, Ruud Dokter and Alex O’Connell respectively – appear to be unaffected by the reorganisation, as, apparently, their roles have not been redefined. A new HR Director is also to be recruited.

Staff at the association were told of the changes on Friday when, it was widely reported, it was also announced that senior team manager Stephen Kenny was to take the Director of International Football role.

The appointment had been interpreted as a vote of confidence in Kenny whose influence would extend beyond overseeing the national team and an attempt to more effectively integrate his job into the association’s wider structure.

On Monday evening, however, it was clarified that there is to be no fundamental change to Kenny’s role or change of title and that he will continue to report to the association’s director of high performance and chief executive as Martin O’Neill and Mick McCarthy would previously have done.