Ex-Manchester United sporting director Dan Ashworth returns to English FA

Former Manchester United sporting director Dan Ashworth has returned to the Soccer Affiliation as Chief Soccer Officer, taking cost of a newly created position with strategic oversight of the England males’s and ladies’s nationwide groups. Ashworth can even lead the redevelopment of St. George’s Park, which is ready for a serious improve forward of Euro 2028.

Ashworth, 54, beforehand labored on the FA as Director of Elite Improvement after which Technical Director from 2013 to 2019. Throughout that interval, he performed a key position in overhauling England’s growth system and was credited as one of many driving forces behind the lads’s crew reaching the semi-finals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

After leaving the FA in 2019, Ashworth took up technical management roles at Brighton & Hove Albion and Newcastle United earlier than becoming a member of Manchester United in July 2024. His time at Previous Trafford lasted simply 5 months, and he was dismissed in December. Co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe later described Ashworth’s appointment and the choice to retain supervisor Erik ten Hag as “errors.” Ashworth’s recruitment and departure reportedly price United 4.1 million.

Regardless of his transient spell at United, the FA has moved shortly to convey Ashworth again. “Dan is a massively influential and revered determine within the sport, who has a long-standing dedication to England Soccer,” stated FA chief government Mark Bullingham. “We’re very pleased to welcome him again on this new position.”

Ashworth will now work alongside males’s technical director John McDermott and the incoming successor to Kay Cossington within the girls’s programme. Certainly one of his speedy obligations might be overseeing the long-term improve of St. George’s Park, the nationwide coaching centre that can play a central position in preparations for Euro 2028, which England is co-hosting.

His profession in soccer administration started following a quick enjoying stint at Norwich Metropolis’s academy. He held early roles at Peterborough United and Cambridge United earlier than rising to prominence as West Bromwich Albion’s technical director. From there, he constructed a status as a shrewd operator, which led to strikes to Brighton and later Newcastle, the place he was appointed sporting director following the membership’s Saudi-backed takeover in 2022.

Ashworth is predicted to begin work on the FA imminently, with the organisation viewing his return as a vital step in bolstering soccer operations and long-term planning throughout all ranges of the nationwide setup.