IFA close in on new Worthington deal

Nigel Worthington will be asked to kick-off talks over the renewal of his contract this week.

And he is expected to put pen to paper on a fresh deal before Christmas.

Saturday night’s 1-0 friendly defeat at the hands of Serbia brought Worthington’s current contract as Northern Ireland manager to an end and after going close to qualification for next summer's World Cup, IFA chiefs want him to stay in the job.

Irish FA President Raymond Kennedy will be the man fronting the contract discussions with Worthington and he is ready to start those talks right away.

“I am hoping to sit down and talk with Nigel very soon,” said Kennedy.

“He is over this week and I’d like to speak to him then to have preliminary discussions. We want him to stay, he’s said that he wants to stay and we’re happy with the job that he has done so far, so hopefully we’ll get things concluded quite quickly. I don’t expect that he’ll be hard to deal with.”

Although he was first approached about a new contract during the summer, Worthington wanted to delay talks until the World Cup campaign finished.

Now, with no international fixtures on the calendar, with the next friendly date in early March, the way is clear for the association and the manager to thrash out fresh terms to allow Worthington to build on the work he has done since taking the job in June 2007.

Sourced from: The Belfast Telegraph