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FAI president Gerry McAnaney has given the strongest indication yet that the Republic of Ireland’s recent upturn in results – unbeaten in four games – will go a long way to Stephen Kenny’s contract being extended until Euro 2024.
“All of those things will be done at board level in November,” McAnaney told reporters in a brief conversation after the ‘Unite the Unions Champions Cup’ launch at Windsor Park on Thursday.
McAnaney agreed that the national team has turned a corner following Kenny’s first competitive win in Baku last Saturday, despite Ireland being out of the running to qualify for next year’s World Cup in Qatar.
“Of course. Listen, things are moving on.”
McAnaney pointed to the full uptake of every ticket for last Tuesday’s 4-0 friendly win over Qatar at the Aviva stadium, coupled with the crowd’s warm reaction to Kenny and new players like Chiedozie Ogbene, as a sign of real progress.
“All you have to do is look on the pitch, 25,000 people will tell you the other night. Everything like that makes a difference. There was positivity. It was there for everyone to see.
“It’s a huge boost for the FAI and hopefully we will have a full house on November 11th [for the Portugal game].”
Nice to be having these conversations rather the doom and gloom that has dominated the recent past?
“Isn’t it great, and wouldn’t it be better with 50,000?”
Fresh concerns raised by Nphet over the spread of Covid-19 has put a 51,700 full house at the Aviva stadium in doubt when Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal will be chasing a win to qualify ahead of Serbia for the first winter World Cup.
“Well, that’s for Nphet, let’s see how it goes,” McAnaney responded. “It would be great to get those nights back. We’ll just go with whatever Government says, we’ll just roll with it. It’s got us to where we are. We’re quite happy to stick with the best advice and we stick with it. If it’s not to be 50,000, it’s not to be 50,000. We just roll with it.”
Kenny’s current two-year contract, which is reportedly worth around €1 million runs until July 2022, just after the first four rounds of the Nations League B tournament. The last match of the current qualifiers is away to Luxembourg on November 14th.