FOOTBALL: FAI honour McGrath

IRISH football legend, Paul McGrath is to be offered a new role in the game - as an ambassador for the Football Association of Ireland. Just weeks after Waterford announced the 83- times capped was to become the new Director of Football, the FAI are ready to offer him a job he covets even more. The two roles are complementary and he will still be able to work with Waterford while representing the National Association in an official capacity. Only three monthsago McGrath, arguably the most popular personality in Irish sport, hit rock bottom in his long unrelenting battle to beat the booze. When he appeared on a charge of being disorderly in a Lancashire court he was described as of no fixed abode. But he has since been on the dry after spending two weeks in a clinic and now lives in County Wicklow. A friend said:"Paul's got his act together again - and this time it's for keeps.

keeps. He knows that he got offside on a few occasions last year and he's determined that it will never happen again."

An FAI insider said: "He's a man perfectly fitted by his playing record to promote the game.

"It'll give him the responsibility that should bring more stability to his life." It's the first time the FAI has seen fit to appoint a roving ambassador as the public face of Irish football.

But FIFA have long recognised the value of such appointments with famous names like Pele, Bobby Charlton and Franz Beckenbauer all doing promotional work for the world governing body.

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