SWINDON Town striker Eoin Doyle says he would ideally like to move back to Ireland ‘as soon as possible’ in order to help his fledgling childcare business.

In an interview with Irish sports website The 42, Doyle revealed his plan for life after football and said he would need to move away from Swindon in order to grow the company, which he runs with former Sligo Rovers teammate Danny Ventre.

Having launched Lily’s just over 12 months ago, Doyle and Ventre have seen the business go from strength to strength, only for the coronavirus pandemic to put things on hold for the time being.

The Irish striker, now 32, revealed he has already turned his attention to life after football though and believes a more hands-on role might be necessary if he is to seamlessly move on after his playing days are over.

Doyle said: “We obviously want to grow the business. From this last couple of weeks, myself and Ciara (Doyle’s wife) are even more adamant that we are going to be moving home as soon as possible.

“The long-term focus would definitely be to move home and get my hands on it and try grow it at a quicker rate maybe, which can’t really happen with me being over here.

“It’s a good business and we feel like we’re doing good things for the community as well in the sense that we’re providing childcare for the family.

“Where we opened is where I grew up as well, so it’s nice for me to get back and see people.”

Doyle signed a permanent deal at the County Ground in late January keeping him at the club until the end of June.

But with the season in a state of limbo right now, Doyle is unsure what his future looks like given his previous wishes about moving back to Dublin sooner rather than later.

He said: “This time last week, I would have thought they’d squeeze the rest of the season maybe into June.

“But the more I look into it now, I think we might be lucky to see it finished at all really.

“The NHS as well over here, there’s talk of if football plays, ambulances are used, and they can’t be used as long as this pandemic is happening.

“So I think basically this needs to finish and then football can start after that.

“When that’ll be I don’t know and it’s going to be interesting times to see what happens with players.

“The likes of myself, I’m out of contract in June, so if it stretches past that date, what’s going to happen? It’s testing for everyone. We’ll just have to play it by day.”