It is over 20 years since Michael Kennedy first offered some professional advice to an Irish footballer, helping David O'Leary, to whom he had been introduced, to arrange the purchase of a house. O'Leary, then playing for Arsenal, was sufficiently impressed by the north London solicitor to recommend his services later to two more Irish players, Niall Quinn and Roy Keane.
This week, Kennedy found himself at the centre of Irish sport's highest drama, working as a mediator between his two clients, among others, in an attempt to broker a deal, satisfactory to all, that would have seen Keane return to the World Cup. It wasn't to be but, by all accounts, it wasn't for the want of trying by Kennedy.
"One day Keane came up to me and said, 'Dave, who looks after your affairs?'," O'Leary told David Walsh of the Sunday Times three years ago. "I said, 'Roy, he's a solicitor called Michael Kennedy and if you get him looking after you, it'll be the best move you'll ever make.' Everything Roy has done since then has been in close consultation with Michael. Roy doesn't breathe without him knowing about it, and it has worked out well."
Kennedy, who has also represented Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton and a host of other Irish players over the years, including several members of the current squad, was born in London of Irish parents and is now a senior partner at Herbert Reeves & Co, a London-based law firm.
A football fanatic, he shuns media attention, unlike many who work in his world (see agent Eric "Monster" Hall), and his involvement in the affairs of so many leading Irish players is reported to be regarded by him as a mere hobby - it is said that his "fee" for representing his footballing clients is a few match tickets, that he refuses payment for his work.
Kennedy was one of a small circle of friends and advisers that included Keane's wife Theresa (Nottingham-born but, like Kennedy, of Irish parents) and his club manager Alex Ferguson to whom Keane turned in the midst of the crisis in Saipan.
By his own admission, Keane has few close friends among current players, either at club or international level, but has a close relationship with his former Irish team-mate Paul McGrath, whose wife Caroline is also one of Theresa Keane's closest friends. While most ex-Irish internationals publicly supported Mick McCarthy this past week, while also criticising the FAI, McGrath and Denis Irwin were Keane's most vocal supporters.
It was left to Kennedy, though, to phone Quinn on Wednesday, and then the FAI's treasurer, John Delaney, with the message that put an end to the whole sorry affair - "I've bad news - in the interests of Irish football Roy has decided to stay at home."