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FORMER ASTON VILLA manager Carla Ward has been appointed as the new head coach of the Ireland women’s national team.
The FAI announced the news this evening, with Ward succeeding Eileen Gleeson in the managerial hot-seat.
The former Villa, Sheffield United and Birmingham City manager will lead the team through to the end of the 2027 Fifa Women’s World Cup campaign.
Ex-Ireland international Alan Mahon has been confirmed as Ward’s assistant coach, with Emma Byrne continuing on as goalkeeping coach.
“I’m hugely excited to get going with the Ireland Women’s National Team,” said Ward. “This is an unbelievable opportunity, not just with the National Team but in helping to add to the fantastic work being done to develop women and girls’ football.
“Over the next two and a half years, as we build towards the World Cup, we can make a real difference and I’m looking forward to getting started.”
Ward has been out of football management since May, when she stepped down from the helm of WSL outfit Villa to prioritise her family life.
This will be the 41-year-old Englishwoman’s first international job, having been part of Emma Hayes’ USWNT staff as they won Gold at the 2024 Olympic Games.
Ward spent three years at the Villa helm; steering them to their best-ever league finish of fifth in 2022/23, as well as a FA Cup and Conti Cup semi-final appearances. The former Sheffield United captain has been coaching since 2018: she managed the Blades and Birmingham City before taking charge of Villa, where she was a popular figure and recruited well. She is currently working towards completing the Uefa Pro Licence.
“We are thrilled to announce a Head Coach of Carla’s pedigree,” FAI Chief Football Officer Marc Canham added. “To be able to secure such a top quality coach is a statement of where our ambition for our Women’s National Team where can go.
“We are delighted to secure someone who brings the passion, commitment and skillset that we set out to find in the recruitment process. Carla’s experience as a coach, aligned with her ability to bring the best out in those around her, marked her out as our number one candidate and we are confident that she will be a brilliant appointment.
“This is an important time for the development of women and girls’ football in Ireland, so having Carla play a leading role in that is hugely significant and we are excited to see what our Women’s National Team can achieve with her.”
Canham, FAI CEO David Courrell, Paul Cooke, Packie Bonner, Laura Finnegan and Aoife Rafferty were on the recruitment panel, and The 42 understands the final round interviews took place last week. The Association have delivered an exciting appointment, and a strong managerial ticket.
Ward will be officially unveiled at the Aviva Stadium tomorrow afternoon.
Ireland return to action next month, when they open their Nations League campaign against Turkiye at Tallaght Stadium on Friday, 21 February. This will be Ward’s first game in charge, while her side face Slovenia in Koper the following Tuesday.
The FAI decided not to offer Gleeson a contract extension in December in the wake of Ireland’s failure to qualify for Euro 2024.
Written by Emma Duffy and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.
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Taxing us in the money we already paid tax on! Just abolish it! It is legal theft, Australia abolished it and made no difference to them. It does not need to be changed, it needs to just be removed.
@HAC: You haven’t paid tax on it before though, without putting too fine a point on it, the person who paid the tax is dead.
@The next small thing: the money has already been taxed, so ideally they are taking nearly 60% tax on the already taxed money. That money was earned legally and tax paid legally and the decision was to give it to their kids etc… how is that fair? It’s like saying you worked hard for this outcome but now let us steal more please. It’s not like the money won’t be used to buy stuff that that is tax free. It will still go back into the economy some way, it will only benefit a the state and perso more to be able to have a home without having to sell it to pay the Inheritance tax.
Double taxation on hard working people.
Free home or nearly free homes which are paid for by hard working people are being handed out to people that don’t work. If someone is unfortunate enough not to be able to work, they deserve help with housing.
However we seem to have a cohort of people that grow up with the impression that they are entitled to a free home paid for by the hard working taxpayers. All the while they sit on their tails at home or attend mass protests.
Then the person that works all his life is expected to have his assets which he already paid tax on, further taxed before his children can inherit it. More tax dollars to put in to free houses for the people that don’t want to work.
What a joke Abolish it
@Max Cooper: or to sell the house because they can’t afford the inheritance tax. Isn’t it stupid? There’s no logic to it other than complete daylight robbery. I don’t have any inheritance coming to me but I wouldn’t like to see someone else robbed of it
It’s the most disgusting tax ever!
@Breda Clarke: So money you work for should be taxed at a higher rate than money that falls into your lap? The best way to ensure that wealth stays within wealthy families and areas is to keep inheritance tax as low as possible.
@Tom O’ Donnell: the best way to ensure wealth is work hard in school or get proficient at a trade. Either will vastly increase your chances of buying a house and pass it on to your children.
@Tom O’ Donnell: wealth that falls into your lap! Jeez…I have recently been left money by a parent, money that they worked hard all their life for and their decision is to give to me rather than spend on themselves but hey ho I should be penalised…makes no sense
@ecrowley ecrowley: unless you work in the health services where you are paid the same whether in Leitrim or Dublin but housing is twice the price in Dublin. Where in addition Dubs also pay higher property tax, much of which goes outside Dublin. The thresholds are ridiculously low and the tax is unfair when related to house prices and income across the country.
@Acumen: yep, dublin council tax pays for all the other councils outside dublin. Dublin is the place everyone pays massive tax and yet we benefit least from it. Even the mica scandal, houses in donegal built like mansions and they want insane money to fix them, who pays for it? Dublin! Yet when dublin had the pyrite issue, we got a grant of €5,000 to stay in a hotel for 3 months which end up costing upwards of €30,000 and more and then had to redo the houses that cost another significant amount in the thousands, yet the mica complainers want 100% redress no less.. joke!
@Acumen: admittedly, my point doesn’t really work for Dublin cos of the crazy housing market so I do have sympathy.
@Jason: yes the roads all over the west, in every little-travelled route are perfect, whereas even the roads in Dublin 4 are potholed wreaks that bust up your car.
Shantytown Simon and his mass emigration party. We didn’t have shantytowns before he came along.
@9QRixo8H: we did, it’s still down to fg policies but housing and record homeless people have long predated the current wave of mass emigration. It’s not the emigrants fault our governments can’t organise a piss up in a brewery.
@9QRixo8H: ye we did
@9QRixo8H: Sure it’s your buddy ROG calling the shots, maybe you could have a whisper in his ear.
Parents are criticised if they save hard and leave something to help their children into the future instead of spend, spend, spend until their money is gone. Their choice but judgement is very different.
@Pat Redmond: The current system rewards laziness and poor judgement and penalises hard work and good judgment. What’s more, the money we hand over to the public service to manage and invest is not handled responsibly, so we end up with high taxes and terrible services.
@Tom D: but those providing the vital services like healthcare professionals, who have paid for their own education, can’t afford homes and can’t afford to inherit. Go figure.
Inheritance tax is a Draconian tax..
Inheritance taxes are double taxation and theft.
It shouldn’t be “costing” them anything it’s costing the people who are inheriting. They just take, take, take constantly even after you die!! Many have to sell the family home to pay this tax.
A house worth €1mn divided between 3 children will not incur a single cent of inheritance tax. Raising this threshold will only benefit those who are already (relatively) wealthy.
I would rather see income tax reliefs provided to lower earners instead.
@Kevin Collins: why should someone pay taxes multiple times on the same money they earned during their lifetime?
@Barney: They don’t. If you are inheriting an asset, it means someone other than you has paid for that asset so you have not paid taxes on it prior to the inheritance tax, if it even arises.
@Kevin Collins: A. You assume they will sell and the home leaves the family
B. So a two children family next door should be taxed out of existence..
Good man well thought out… hammer anyone else because it doesn’t affect me
@Kevin Collins: it’s private property. Taxes are all paid on it. Nothing should be deducted on inheritance tax, it’s not government property.
However people that start off in social housing that improve their status in life and their earnings, should either pay the equivalent of a mortgage on the social housing or move on to buy their own. Free up social housing. No more free loading paid for by taxes from private property inheritance tax.
@Emmet Doyle: There is a dwelling home exemption available if a sole dependent is living in and inherits the family home.
In scenario B, each of the 2 children is inheriting assets worth €500k. The inheritance tax that arises is €54k each, which is about 1/10th of the value of the asset they are receiving. Hardly “taxed out of existence” and a “hammering” but a small form of redistribution from the wealthy to the state (which ultimately benefits those who are not as fortunate as to receive a sizeable inheritance).
@William Slevin: The whole “taxes have already been paid” argument is but an emotive red herring. Take for example my employer, who has already paid taxes, then pays me and I have to pay taxes on my income (even though “taxes have already been paid” on this income). I then go and spend money in a hairdresser and the hairdresser then pays taxes on that income, again even though “taxes have already been paid” on that income.
If in this scenario the employer is my father and the hairdresser is my son, the fact that they are related to me is irrelevant. I.e. the fact my father worked and paid taxes on his salary has no bearing on whether I have to pay taxes on my salary.
In any case, with inheritance taxes, there is a €335k threshold that applies before any taxes kick in and this threshold is more than sufficient to cater for most ordinary people, with taxes only being paid by wealthier inheritors, which is precisely what a progressive taxation system should entail..
Inheritance tax has nothing to do with capital gains taxes by the way, although CGT is coincidentally also charged at 33%.
@Kevin Collins: yeah but a million euro house left to one person will incur a lot of tax. Nonsense point……. The original owner paid tax throughout their life and most likely alot of interest on a mortgage…… CGT thresholds were a lot higher, the tax rate a lot lower prior to the crash and the govt decided to start fleecing people. It needs to be restored to what it was and adjusted upwards for inflation. They get enough taxes from us while we’re alive!!!!!
@Kevin Collins: Except the average price of a house is running at circa 440k in Dublin. So categorising anyone over the 335k threshold as wealthy today is disingenuous in the extreme.
@Kevin Collins: Sorry CAT…… It generated around 640 million in 2023. 0.5% of govt revenue last year….. Disgusting tax
@Kevin Collins:
Our OAPS would like to see an
Increase in tax reliefs on all earnings over €18,000 ( apx 450 pw) . All income above that is subject to 40 percent tax..
@Sean Callan: the 20% band kicks in at €18750, the 40% higher rate band applies to income above €42k. Double these for couples, with other reliefs available to OAPs too.
@Kevin Collins: Kevin. You are wrong on that. The tax exemption for pensioners is €18000 for one person and €36000 for a couple. All income above those amounts is taxed at 40%. They can opt to be taxed as a regular taxpayer .
@Kevin Collins: but if you only had two children because that’s what you could afford on two salaries, they get screwed.
More money for the rich kids of the Fine Gael landlords.
@Willie Marty: define “rich”?
@Pat Hazzard: you and your wealthy friends in Fine Gael
@Willie Marty: try getting a job in steady of chossing a life of idleness
@Paul: Ah! another smart alec making assumptions.For your information ive never been idle a day in my life.
Property tax is very unfair tax. More so than inheritance tax.
FG introduced it.
They want to steal all your hard earned money, with the threat of violence if you do not pay, in order to pass it around in their golden circle.
All to fund the lazy dole scroungers from cradle to grave and the idle Public Sector!
@Paul: yeah wouldn’t mind but there not even irish shipping them in to give them everything
@Paul: public sector workers are a joke! Half of them run to the pub at lunch Time and don’t come back, they male sure they use up all their sick days, get more annual leave, pensions and can’t be sacked unless they murder someone, and yer they do nothing but complain. Like during the last global recession when they marched amd demanded pay rises and got it while the rest of the country was jobless and suffering. Who they think paid their wages? It sure as well wasn’t themselves.. private sector funds their salaries. Bunch of lazy workers the lot of them. Abuse the system constantly while talking about how hard they work. Try ring s public sector office at 4:30 and you won’t get them because it’s 30 minutes until quitting Time. 70-80% of them don’t deserve their jobs
The Shinners see inheritance tax a rich man’s tax but in truth it is anything but people that worked hard all their life should not have their wealth confiscated by greedy politicians and social malcontents,it is theirs to do what they choose,period
So sorry your mother died, here’s a tax bill for it.
Absolute nonsense of an idea. If Fine Gael bring this in they will lose votes.If the house is left to the offspring they can sell it and take their £335000 tax free between them.Well known that this idea was hatched by the well heeled Dublin based fine Gael politicians.
Fine gael looking after their rich property/land owners buddies as usual! s
@John Kelly: Ordinary working people living in semi D’s with 25/30 year mortgages are rich now, you must have been given one of the free houses, knob of a comment & I am on here criticizing FG.
Two things are certain in life death and taxes none can be avoided the day always comes.
@Be Lucky: genuinely think head of revenue should be seconded to the HSE to sort it out!!
No, give people homes.
@Áine G: dont “give” people homes. Make homes affordable for all.
And a cup of coffee or two for the pensioners, sounds about right.
@Padraig O’Brien: if they spent their savings and enjoyed life instead of leaving it to the kids they’d benefit!
Oh but you get €335k tax free! What a privilege! Show me a house in Dublin that is not semi-derelict or an ex-council house in a bad area that costs less than €335k.
Socialism in this country is out of control.
If you want more public services, social housing and supports then you would support this tax as it is taking generational wealth away and levelling the playing field a bit.
@The next small thing: working will help to level the playing field, but that wouldnt be easy enough for your ilk!
@The next small thing: Eventually the Left will find that screwing ordinary working people to support the Dossers will backfire, when all that is left to abuse is the Left itself. The Far Left in France with the Communists couldn’t even agree on a leader. Once you leave working people with nothing, they will fight back & fight back ferociously as they are used to fighting & grafting for everything unlike the Left Pyjama entitlement brigade who never dirtied their hands.
Best way to avoid inheritance tax is to ship your money outside of Ireland and leave it in an account for your kids, your kids go to that country when you die and you withdraw that money and return home, you don’t pay tax on it because it wasn’t In Ireland at the time of the handover. You also get to use that money whenever you need it while still alive but you don’t keep it In Ireland. Win win. Can’t tax something that didn’t exist in the country when the time came to tax it. They can only tax what the person has left at the time of in banks associated with the country they arwme in. You also put the bank account In joint names so that it cantbe taxed as all people own the money and account at the time of one of the account Holders demise.
Well off children of wealthy parents deserve tax free free money they did nothing themselves to ever deserve to become even more wealthy but anto doing a nixer on the side for a few bob should be ratted on and jailed immediately for paying no tax on it. Funny country we live in lol.
Two years ago, there was outrage among those in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over the Commission on Taxation report recommending the tax-free threshold for inheritance tax should be lowered rather than increased.
How surprising !
Way to stop people from getting rich
have your say