Cork City manager John Caulfield admits he will barely have time to celebrate his side’s league and cup double before preparations for next season begin.
City claimed the FAI Cup, beating fierce rivals Dundalk on a penalty shoot-out at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday, adding that trophy to their League of Ireland Premier Division title.
Caulfield and his side arrived home in Cork for a civic reception along with the Cork City women’s team, which also enjoyed cup success yesterday.
Thousands gathered at Grand Parade to welcome home Caulfield’s team but speaking to 2fm’s Game On earlier in the day, the Cork boss revealed that he’s already thinking about next season.
Cork City's soccer teams arrive home to a heroes welcome after Cup glory. pic.twitter.com/uk9RM9rJHu
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) November 6, 2017
"The next two or three weeks is probably the toughest two or three weeks for most managers," he said.
"Players are out of contract and you’re trying to get renegotiate and get some new players in for next season.
"So it’s probably the most stressful part of the season believe it or not. You’re trying to put in the groundwork for the start of next season and you need to tie up a number of players and that’s what I’ll be doing for the next number of weeks.
"We try to sell the football environment down here, any player that comes into our club from the outside, we insist they have to come down to Cork and live in the community. It’s part and parcel of the whole deal," Caulfield added.
The Cork boss did admit that his side are still playing catch-up with other teams in the league when it comes to wages but he believes that the lure of Champions League football next season will convince players to join.
"We’ve got great facilities and with wages, we’re competitive but we’re not in the top three in the country I’d imagine.
"But at the same time, if you’re up there competing for trophies and you average 5,000 supporters every home game, it’s a massive attraction and obviously playing in Europe as well. So the overall package that we offer is quiet good from that point of view.
"From financial terms, some players can do better in other clubs but we’ve been lucky so far, we try to get people to buy into our philosophy and we’ve obviously got loads of local players as well."
For the time being though, Caulfield is happy to bask is his side’s success, which he dedicated to the Cork City supporters who have been behind his team all season.
"All season we’ve had over 100,000 through the gates at Turner’s Cross. We’ve had tremendous support, we’re a community club and you know what winning means to the city and county.
"All the backroom team are all ex-Cork soccer people, most of them are Cork City people so from that point of view, they’ve all played, they’ve all supported and we’re in a unique position where we manage a club where we’ve all followed and played with."
