All-Ireland winning Donegal boss Jim McGuinness has welcomed interest in his services from other sports and admitted he would be interested in working with a top flight soccer club.
McGuiness has been linked with posts at Glasgow Celtic and Liverpool after guiding Donegal to their first All-Ireland title in 20 years.
A noted sports psychologist, McGuinness has already struck up a relationship with Celtic boss Neil Lennon, who was a guest of the GAA at the recent All-Ireland final.
Speaking to Highland Radio in Donegal, McGuinness said, “I was invited over to Celtic a number of weeks ago for a Champions League match. It was a great experience to go over and see it.
“The day before I was invited over to the training grounds and got to look around. It’s a fantastic set-up, fantastic people there from the recruitment, talent identification, strength and conditioning, the coaches themselves and just the facilities.
“It was a great experience for me to go over there and to see that. Something I was obviously going to take with open arms when I was asked did I want to go over.”
McGuinness has yet to have any approach from Celtic, Liverpool or any other soccer team, but he is open to offers.
He added, “I’m a young man, I have three kids, a young family so it’s obviously something you would have to consider.
“My background is in sports science. My background is in psychology and that’s transferable to any sport.
“I’ve worked with all different sports. Trained Finn Harps for a year, worked with Derry City, trained Limavady for a year. Worked with golfers, Gaelic teams, hurling, male, female, young athletes.
“I’ve worked across the spectrum so it wouldn’t be something that would scare me. If something came up, you’d look at it and discuss it with my wife. That would be the approach.”
McGuinness did admit it would take a serious offer to drag him away from his current job with the All-Ireland champions.
“It’s hard to know. Donegal is where I’m from, Donegal is my love and my passion,” he said.
“It would have to be something that I would have to look at very seriously if it was going to be anything. That isn’t the case at the moment.”
The Donegal boss also revealed that Ryder Cup vice captain Paul McGinley, whose father is from the county, made contact with him after the final.
“He texted me before the final that he was hoping for a good double and, thankfully, that’s the way it worked out,” McGuinness said.
“He texted me after the Ryder Cup to say it was like being 10 points down at halftime and winning the match by a point when they beat U.S.”
Asked about the All-Ireland final win over Mayo, McGuinness confirmed the two early goals were part of his master plan.
He said, “We were hoping to get a good start. We were hoping that there would be goals within the start, we talked about one before the game and possibly two if we done everything right.
“I think the things that created the goals in the first place, we stopped doing that. However, I was cross at halftime, for the first time probably that I was involved and I was cross because we put ourselves in a very, very strong position.
“And I really wanted the game to be perfect for the boys and I felt we got ourselves into a position where we could have created that but we started doing things then within the game that we normally wouldn’t do.”
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