McGee, McFadden and Barrett remaining on board with McGuinness and Donegal 

Jim McGuinness won’t be making any wholesale changes to his backroom team with Neil McGee, Colm McFadden and Luke Barrett remaining on board for 2025. 

After a turbulent 2023, where a number of high-profile issues, on and off the field, put Donegal GAA under a national spotlight, McGuinness agreed to return for a second spell in charge of the senior football team. 

He enlisted the services of 2012 All-Ireland winners McGee and McFadden as well as Milford’s Luke Barrett and DonegalLive has learned that all three are remaining put for next season. 

Donegal cruised through Division 2 last term, winning the competition outright with victory over Armagh in the final at Croke Park. 

They would blaze a trail in Ulster, spectacularly dumping reigning champions Derry out of the running in Celtic Park before eventually downing Armagh, once more, in the final in a dramatic penalty shootout. 

They’d progress all the way to the All-Ireland semi-final but just came up short as Galway progressed on a scoreline of 1-14 to 0-15 at Croke Park. 

Armagh picked themselves up from their provincial disappointment to eventually lift Sam Maguire at the Tribesmen’s expense.  

With the pre-season competitions, including the Dr McKenna Cup, suspended for 2025, Donegal’s first taste of competitive action will now come on their return to Division 1 of the NFL, which gets going towards the end of January. 

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The Allianz Football League fixtures are scheduled to be released in early December with inter-county panels allowed to get back down to business, collectively, on December 7. 

The 2025 provincial football championship draws will take place on Saturday, October 12, and will be broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1.

In Ulster, the teams that played in this year's preliminary rounds, Cavan and Monaghan, as well as the 2023 fixture of Antrim against Armagh, will skip the opening round. 

As a result, two of Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, or Tyrone will face each other in the preliminary quarter-final.