The Football Association of Ireland launched the Coach Education Pathway 2017-2020 with the emphasis on aiding coaches at all levels to fulfil their potential.

The FAI’s Coach Education Pathway 2017-2020 has been tailored to suit the needs to coaches whose ambitions are to work in different strands of the game – grassroots and volunteer level to elite/professional level.

The significant change to the grassroots pathway means that now coaches enter in the reality based learning model at the level they are coaching. The Kick-Start 1 & 2 courses will be renamed PDP 1 & 2 and the relevant courses will now be: PDP 1 (formerly KS1): 6 to 9 year olds; PDP 2 (formerly KS2): - 9 to 12 year olds; PDP 3 (formerly Youth Certificate): 13 to 18 year olds; Adult Intro (Formerly Senior Intro): adult players.

Grassroots coaches seeking to progress to the Licenced level must complete a minimum of 40 hours of grassroots education before entering the Licence pathway at the D Licence Level.

The significant changes to the Licence Pathway are the introduction of the following structure: National D Licence, National C Licence, UEFA B Licence, UEFA A Licence, UEFA A Elite Youth and UEFA Pro Licence. After completing the UEFA A Licence coaches are eligible to apply where suitable for the Elite Youth A and or the UEFA Pro Licence.

As part of the new pathway the specialist Goalkeeper Coaching route and futsal coaching route are now outlined. It is now compulsory with FAI Coach Education that each coach will complete their Garda Vetting (or equivalent internationally) prior to entering the course, the FAI Child Welfare Training Programme and coaches entering the pathway as of 2017 will have to be a registered coach with the FAI Coach Education Department.

All FAI Coach Education courses nationwide will now be available to book from FAI Coach Education Courses