Gavin McAteer, Josh Cullen and Corey Sheridan have all been named in the Republic of Ireland squad for the upcoming Under-17 FIFA World Cup.

The tournament takes place in Qatar and begins on Monday, November 3.

Colin O’Brien’s outfit commence their campaign with a match against Panama on November 5 before later group encounters against Uzbekistan and Paraguay.

The Finn Harps trio have been selected for the previous number of International squads, most recently for a pair of friendlies against Poland and Switzerland earlier this month.

On the club’s social media, first-team manager Kevin McHugh stated, “As their head coach and somebody who’s have been heavily involved with the three players all along the way, as Head of the Academy, and followed their progression all along the way, it’s a brilliant day. A huge congratulations to them and to their families.

It’s also a brilliant day for their previous clubs in Milford United, Donegal Town and Erne Wanderers and all their coaches and the leagues who have helped the players grow and contributed massively to the boys reaching the highest level possible for players in their age group in world football. It’s a huge day for football here and in our club history. It’s definitely a first for anybody from Finn Harps to be involved in a World Cup and to have not one or even two but three players there is just phenomenal. Not many clubs can say that, so it’s a massive, massive day for us as a football club.

International involvement is something that’s one of the measurements that we try to gauge each year. The goal for these boys through the development squads and the National League teams is to try to reach the first team, they’ve done that at young age and that brought interest from the international camp.

To be going to the World Cup with the best players in the world in their age group is massive for them, massive for football in Donegal and of course brilliant for our football club as well. It’s definitely proof that what we’re trying to do in terms of sustainable, changing structures so that top end pathway is accessible for young players to get in and get a chance of minutes on the pitch.

Long term, that’s something we’ve tried to do and something our fans can be proud of as well because they’ve backed these players through tough moments and haven’t had a lot to shout about at times but turned up in numbers and backed the players, including the boys going to the world Cup. So a brilliant, brilliant day for the football club in general and as a staff we are so, so proud of the three boys”.

Finn Harps FC Chairperson Ian Harkin praised the achievement, highlighting the collective effort behind the club’s recent Academy progress: “This is a very proud moment for everyone at Finn Harps. To have Gavin, Josh and Corey representing Ireland on the world stage is an incredible achievement. It reflects the fantastic work that Kevin and all of our coaches, staff and volunteers have done in developing our youth structures and processes over the past number of years.

The foresight shown in focusing on players from the age often, and in building a clear pathway for them to develop while remaining inDonegal, is now paying off. We can proudly say that Finn Harps are among the top clubs in Ireland this year for giving first-team minutes to Academy graduates. That’s something we can all be very proud of. Even as we rebuild, itshows the importance of having a strong foundation.

Long-term, this approach will benefit the club both on the pitch as we develop more first team players and as a sustainable model for club development while providing a genuine pathway to international recognition and career progression in football right here in Donegal. We have had 13 Harps players on international duty in 2025 so it was already a landmark year- this latest news really is the cherry on the cake.”