Shelbourne have appointed Alan Caffrey as their new sporting and technical director. He arrives at Tolka Park with a strong reputation built up over nine years at one of the country’s most successful schoolboy club academies.
Having played for Bohemians, he subsequently moved into coaching and was an academy manager at West Brom but in recent years at played a key role at St Kevin’s in the collaboration with his former club, one that had produced a number of high profile first team players at Dalymount Park.
The schoolboy outfit also has also played a significant part in the careers of a number of senior internationals, most recently Dara O’Shea.
His role at Shelbourne is to involve oversight of all the football operations including the senior men’s and women’s teams. “It’s a role I’ve always been interested in,” he says. “The role is a massive part of developing football clubs the right way. I’ve been around football clubs around here and in Europe and there’s a huge opportunity.”
Will Clarke, meanwhile, is returning to the FAI from his role as Director of Club Operations at another of the city’s most renowned academies, St Kevin’s Boys.
Clarke, left a Development Officer’s job at the association in order to join the club a decade ago but now takes on a newly created role in which he will coordinate the work to develop academies at league clubs around the country.
