FAI plan to open contract negotiations with Hallgrimsson before Christmas

Republic of Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson celebrates. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

The FAI have confirmed they intend to open negotiations with Heimir Hallgrímsson on a contract extension prior to Christmas.

As flagged by the Irish Examiner last week, association powerbrokers are eager to agree a deal in principle ahead of the World Cup playoffs that begin with a semi-final on March 26 in Prague against Czechia.

Whether or not Ireland emerge from their four-nation pathway with a ticket to the finals in North America in June, there are Uefa Nations League B matches scheduled between September and November.

2026 will entail the Euro 2028 qualifiers kicking off, although Ireland have a strong prospect of featuring as a co-host regardless of results. Two hosting passes are available at the 24-nation showpiece for England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

John Martin has become Hallgrímsson’s line manager since joining the FAI in September. He succeeded the departed chief football officer Marc Canham, but his title is director of football.

Hallgrímsson led Ireland to second place in their World Cup group by overseeing victories over the top two seeds, Portugal and Hungary, during a recent glorious three-day period.

Martin was also keen to highlight the feats he achieved over eight Nations League games, given Ireland’s dire record since the concept began in 2018.

The Icelander has adopted a relaxed approach to his contract association but it seems a meeting of minds is inevitable when talks open in the coming weeks.

“The plan is to sit down before Christmas and go through what 2025 looked like,” Martin told Off The Ball AM on Wednesday.

“The good thing about Heimir is that this is all real positive, it’s a positive conversation.

“I’m not having to try deflect away because we’ve had bad results “As the man himself said, let’s not turn a positive story into a negative. The way I would see it is, if you go back to September before we played Hungary, in theory he possibly had less left on his contract then, than he does today, so that’s a positive, that’s because of the results.

“I would say it’s all really good. We’ll sit down with him before Christmas and we’ll see how we get on.” 

Martin spoke about the manager’s impact, not just in terms of outcomes but his personality, stating: “I just really like him. I think he’s done fantastic.

“If you look at some of the results and the underlying data which is really important, we won two out of 16 Nations League games in history. He came in and won four out of eight.

“We had never won away from home in the Nations League and he has won twice.

“We hadn’t beaten a top seed in a qualifier in 10 years and he did that. Then, we hadn’t won away from home against a second seed for eight years. He did that too.

“I know people hate xG and criticise it but, if you look at the two Hungary games, not only do we take four points out of six, but we dominated from an xG perspective.”