FAI appoints Cathal Dervan as director of communications

The FAI is to appoint the journalist and current Sports Editor at the Irish edition of The Sun, Cathal Dervan, as its new director of communications.

Dervan, who started out as a sports reporter on the Meath Chronicle in the 1980s before moving to The Star in Dublin then London and subsequently co-founding The Title (later the sports section part of Ireland on Sunday), has been working with The Sun since 2012.

A veteran of covering the Irish game, Dervan is close to current Republic of Ireland boss Mick McCarthy and wrote his diary of the 2002 World Cup. He has also worked with Paul McGrath and Michelle de Bruin on autobiographies.

He succeeds Ian Mallon in the job at Abbotstown. The former Irish Independent journalist left the association at the start of last year and the communications department had been run in the meantime by Gareth Maher.