FAI deny Poyet's backroom staff request was vetoed
FAI sources have denied that they vetoed Gus Poyet’s candidature for the Ireland job over backroom staff.
Negotiations between the association and the Uruguayan ramped up after his Greece side lost their Euro playoff final on Tuesday night to Georgia, managed by another name linked with the job.
"I never felt about going, even if you would’ve asked me before the match," declared Frenchman Willy Sagnol, crushing talk of abandoning the Georgia cause.
Poyet was free to discuss job opportunities as his contract with the Greek FA expired on Sunday and there was a sense an end to his three-year regime was nigh.
The FAI had previously floated the likelihood of a four-year contract for Stephen Kenny’s successor and the fact Euro 2028 encroaches into a fifth year may well have been behind the deal length that surfaced in the Greek media on Saturday morning.
Those reports asserted the 56-year-old had rejected the FAI’s offer on Friday after being given a two-day deadline to make a final decision.
On Wednesday morning, FAI board members were informed by chief executive Jonathan Hill that plans remained on track to unveil a permanent manager in the days following the Euro women’s qualifier against England Tuesday, April 9.
It is known that Poyet proposed keeping his son Diego, who flanked him in the Greece job, on his staff along with his former player Gary Dicker as the Irish dimension of his backroom team.
The FAI are keen for interim boss John O’Shea to be retained and that wasn’t deemed a showstopper given the pair were manager and captain at Sunderland.
Though chief headhunter Marc Canham in February cited a “collaborative approach” to assembling staff with the chosen one, the notion of personnel being imposed on the
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