Dan Ashworth in shock return to FA after Manchester United sacking

Former Manchester United sporting director Dan Ashworth is in discussions over a return to the Football Association in a senior role.

Ashworth, 54, sacked last year after just five months at United by the Ineos regime, who poached him from Newcastle United, is in talks for what would be a major job at St George’s Park.

The talks had begun far ahead of the first two games of Thomas Tuchel’s new regime over the last four days, the German coach having been appointed by current technical director John McDermott and chief executive Mark Bullingham.

Ashworth has been considered for a number of roles since his surprise departure from United, including the Arsenal sporting director’s job. He was a pivotal figure at the FA from 2012 to 2018 when he rose from head of elite development to running the entire football operation at St George’s Park. That included senior and junior teams across the men’s and women’s game, sports science, and coach education. He left in 2018 to take up the sporting director role at Brighton and Hove Albion.

Should the role be agreed, Ashworth would oversee the “St George’s Park 2.0 project” that was recently announced by the FA – a “radical refurbishment” of the facility. He would oversee both the men’s and women’s senior and junior teams. He would also look closely at coach development. There is some anxiety at the FA at the state of British coaching pathways with a German national in charge of the England team and only two Englishmen managing in the Premier League.

There is no suggestion that McDermott would leave the FA and his technical director role would be unchanged. The women’s technical director role would also remain intact. The current incumbent, Kay Cossington, is to leave at the end of the year to take up a new role.

Under Ashworth previously at the FA, the Under-17s and Under-20s were world champions in 2017 and the Under-19s were European champions the same year. Then there was the progress of Sir Gareth Southgate’s England team who went to the World Cup semi-finals in Ashworth’s last year at the FA, subsequently reaching two Euros finals with the generation of players who had come through the new England system.

England have enjoyed other successes since then, most notably Lee Carsley’s Under-21s winning the European championships last summer – the first in that cohort since 1984.

The FA declined to comment.

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