Future unclear for Kilduff as Dundalk braces for possible ownership change

Ciaran Kilduff has once again addressed growing uncertainty surrounding his future as Dundalk FC manager, with his position cast into doubt amid speculation of a potential change in the club’s majority ownership at Oriel Park.

Kilduff—who guided The Lilywhites to the SSE Airtricity League First Division title and the PTSB Leinster Senior Cup in his debut season at the helm—reaffirmed his desire to remain in charge for next season’s Premier Division campaign. However, he conceded that uncertainty persists regarding his immediate future.

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The latest developments come less than 24 hours after Kilduff’s appearance at the Town End Podcast’s end-of-season live show. Shortly thereafter, The 1903 Supporters Club circulated a questionnaire among its members concerning a proposed vote of no confidence in owner John Temple, expressing fears over the club’s capacity to secure the necessary licence for next season.

This was followed the next day by a formal statement from the group calling for Mr Temple, Dundalk’s majority shareholder, to step aside.

“I’ve no plans to be anywhere else,” expressed Kilduff. “I’m at that same moment we were at the start of last year, where you’re kind of educating yourself on how it’s going to look.

“The league ended 96 hours ago, so everyone wants, ‘what’s now,’ and I’m there too. We’re all itching to go again, but the club—it’s evolving now.

“We’re going back to the scene of the crime. That league is booming, and we nearly closed our doors, so I imagine there is that little bit of trepidation about how we’re going to do this.

“Everyone’s asking everyone the same question, and I get asked after matches, ‘what’s next year look like?’ And the reality of it is, I don’t really know just yet—and that might be okay for now.

“There is an urgency about it, and I want to get cracking and all of that, and everyone is, but with sustainability, we don’t want to make mistakes.

“Now we’re in this critical moment of, we’re after winning that, and everyone’s going, ‘oh, we’re back.’ We’re not—there’s no point in not admitting it. The reality is, we’re not going to go straight back up and back to challenging for titles.

“This is a brick-by-brick kind of thing, so there probably is no immediate, definite answer to it yet. We’re just trying to figure out the lay of the land and the landscape. But of course, like everyone in the room and the players and me—I’m sure we’re all excited for next year.”

Looking back on the 2025 season, the Dundalk manager revealed that he had believed from the very beginning that his side was capable of winning the First Division:

“I did say early to John (Temple) that I thought we could win it, because I knew the people I was lucky enough to bring in. I was leaning on people who I’ve known a long, long time to come in and help us over a tough period.

“ I was very lucky with the situation, and I did believe we could win the league. I took the job with that in mind. You can never promise it, but that was the objective.

“The beauty of coming in at the time was I was never, at that moment, taking the job. They’d already been relegated, so I felt like I might be the manager to get them promoted.

“Now we’re looking down, where I don’t want to be the manager to get them relegated, so you’re kind of going back and forth all the time.

“There is this transition period now for the club again. Not saying there’s uncertainty, but now the reward for doing a good job as a group is an even bigger job, and we all know that.

“I just think, at the time last year, it was very linear. It was like, okay, I don’t think the club could have been in any worse condition from when John came in and when I was taking over.

“I didn’t worry about SCARP or anything like that, because the deal was I’ll worry about building a football team, tell me what I have, I went and did that, so that was the job.”