Race is on to succeed McCarthy

The race is on to succeed Mick McCarthy as Irish soccer manager.

The Yorkshire man resigned last night after more than six years in charge.

Early favourite David O'Leary says he is not interested in the job and likely candidates include John Toshack, Joe Kinnear and John Aldridge, who has admitted he would like the post.

FAI General Secretary, Brendan Menton, says he hopes to have someone new in place by February.

"In the short term we have a friendly away in Athens in two weeks time and Don Givens has agreed to take charge of the team for that friendly.

"We are going to start the process of finding a new manager quickly, the international committee is being reconvened next Monday and that is the first step in the process."

He concluded: "We would hope to have somebody in place for our friendly against Scotland in February."