FAI CEO David Courell has said the association are willing to once again look outside of Ireland to fill the chief football officer role (CFO) vacated by Marc Canham.
Canham confirmed on Tuesday that he intends to return to his native England with his family after almost three years with the FAI. He initially came in as the director of football, but was give a new title - and wider responsibilities - last September when elevated to the role of chief football officer.
Previously Dutchman Ruud Dokter, who departed in 2021, had an eight-year stint as High Performance Director.
The FAI will appoint an interim CFO from within as they cast the net wide for a permanent appointment.
"We will do it as swiftly as we can," Courell told RTÉ Sport.
"We are immediately firing up a search for the long-term successor. In the interim we'll be looking at an in-house solution to ensure we've got continuity, and thank you to Marc for his commitment to supporting that transition.
"I'm not going to to put timelines on it as you can appreciate but we will do it as swiftly as we can and make sure we get the right candidate to lead Irish football forward and deliver on our Football Pathways Plan."
Asked if the successful candidate is likely to come from within Irish football, Courell replied: "I think there's been a lot of debate on this, understandably. We've got amazing talent within the Irish football community and I hope and suspect a lot will come forward, but equally I'm not going to restrict it solely to that.
"My overriding objective is to identify the best person to take Irish football forward and realise its full potential.
"If that person presents from within our community, amazing, fantastic. But equally I'm not going to close off other opportunties."
Canham came under fire at various times during his spell. The protracted search for a successor to Stephen Kenny attracted criticism, while Canham admitted his regrets over the handling of Colin Healy's removal as assistant manager of the women's national team.
He unveiled the Football Pathways a year ago 2024, a document that laid out ambitions to align the calendar at all levels of the game. In December, an FAI general assembly vote endorsed the plan, with leagues around the country set to move to a calendar year season by 2028.
"Marc has found himself at the centre of certain commentary over recent years," Courell added.
"That comes with the territory. The reality is, those of us that have the privilege of working in, I suppose quite public roles in Irish sport, need to have broad shoulders because when you're bringing about change in an industry or in a sport that people are passionate about there's going to be opinions that will enter into the fray.
"That's quite natural. I think Marc has handled it well over the years but as I said for his own reasons he's decided to step away and we repsect that."
Courell insisted the FAI are "100%" behind Canham's Football Pathways Plan.
"The Football Pathways Plan is a plan for the game, the whole game. It was born out of 16,000 hours of consultation with our community to understand what were the challenges that were facing Irish football, what was holding us back from realising our full potential.
"We have a very clear vision now for what we need to do to address those challenges."
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