WORLD CUP/ROY'S EXPULSION: After yet another remarkable day of rumour and negotiation in Izumo, Tom Humphries charts the events that led up to the Ireland captain's decision to end the doubt and uncertainty concerning his participation in the World Cup
Keane's statement:
"In the interests of all genuine supporters of Irish football the time has now arrived when I should bring a conclusion to the continuing speculation with regard to my participation in the World Cup and for the players to concentrate fully on their preparations for the competition free from all further distractions.
"Whilst I appreciate all the support which I have received I do not consider that the best interests of Irish football will be served by my returning to the World Cup.
"The damage has been done. I wish the team and the management all the best. They have my full support throughout the competition and I urge all the people of Ireland to give their support to the team and I do not feel that any useful purpose will be served by my making any further comment."
Roy Keane ended it all just when minds were growing weary and tempers were getting short. The thrill was gone, Roy was gone and for a while yesterday all hope of any enjoyment form this World Cup was gone too. The day In Izumo was bookended with a couple of FAI press conferences which had us reaching for the thesauarus. Farce or fiasco? Shambles or disgrace? BY nightfall the only solution appeared to be for Roy to leap out of a large cake in the team hotel shouting Surprise! and then word seeped through that efforts were still ongoing and we rolled our eyes and girded our laptops and waited.
What came was a short and dignified statement from Roy Keane. No purpose served wish the best etc etc And so he bows finally out in quieter style than he came in. And he quits too while he is ahead. In point scoring terms it had been a good day for the Keane camp yesterday and a disaster for the McCarthyites.
A long night had gave way to a day full of contradictions and mixed signals. It began with Mick McCarthy being woken from his sleep and ended with McCarthy being led almost by the ear from press conference by FAI General Secretary Brendan Menton. We went away thinking that this was going to run until all dignity had been drained from it. Than came Keane's statement withdrawing from the affair.
Nobody told McCarthy there would be days like yesterday. Nobody told him there would be wake up calls like these either. The media, working till dawn on the story of Keane's television appearance, travelled en masse across Izumo (a great raggle taggle procession of bleary hacks which bewildered the already confused locals) at about 6:45 a.m. in an attempt to squeeze McCarthy's response into the same news cycle as the Roy Show.
Entrance to the Royal Hotel was politely barred. Finally the FAI press officer Mr Brendan McKenna was woken by a member of hotel staff. McKenna emerged and as the first act of what would be a difficult day for him confessed that he knew nothing whatsoever about the Keane TV interview. Filled in by members of the media he then went back into the hotel and spoke to Mick McCarthy who initially declined to come out of his cave to make comment.
Soon however McCarthy could be seen in the common area downstairs in the hotel making phone calls and discussing matters with various staff members. He emerged to confirm that he was aware of various aspects of the Keane interview and appeared to have softened significantly in his line on the matter when he said that "the call has got to come." The distinct impression was given that Keane had only to make personal contact and display some degree of contrition and he would be on a plane for Japan, an outcome which by then was desired by most of the Irish public. Most Irish papers went to bed with that cheering thought as their lead. The long national nightmare was about to be over, we could get back to living.
By the time the papers hit the streets that notion seemed quaint..
The team arrived an hour late for their scheduled morning training session and information came via drip feed after that. Mick McCarthy would not be doing a post session press conference as scheduled. Three players as per the established rota would give a press conference at 5:30 p.m. As sleepy media representatives began to drift back towards their hotel it was made known that the players had met for forty minutes before coming to the training session . There would be a statement issued by one of their number following the training session. It sounded as if the player would be wearing a balaclava and styligng himself as a member of the Continuity Squad.
As it transpired, and the lapse in judgement was critical in shaping the mood of the day, neither players nor manager arrived into the media centre to conduct one of the most infamous press conferences in Irish soccer history. That job was left to Brendan McKenna who hours previously had been so far outside the loop that he was unaware that Keane had even given a TV interview. Nobody could remember McKenna conducting a major press conference before. It didn't go well.
McKenna announced the injury news from the squad, the minutae of who trained and who didn't train, he gave the details as regards press conferences or the lack of them for the remainder of the day and announced that the team were due to visit a hospital yesterday afternoon. Then, he said, almost casually, that he had a statement from the players and staff who had met earlier.
The seventy three word statement withdrew any goodwill that had existed earlier and in hindsight the words used and terse manner of them must have been instrumental in getting Keane to put an end to the process later in the day. There might have been a way back with an apology to Mick McCarthy but old friendships? They were gone. The squad had decided that they would be better off without Roy. They had decided too apparently that they would be better off without coming into the media centre and answering questions about their own statement.
Now the issue seemed no longer to be about Keane but about the viability of Mick McCarthy's job. It seemed to be about player power. Mick McCarthy had suggested that he was still waiting on a call from Keane. The squad appeared to have summarily closed that door and were now deciding on their own composition. And for a few hours it hung like that.
Then at five o clock in the afternoon Niall Quinn came to the media centre and gave the finest performance yet seen by a supporting actor in a long running soap opera. he was dignified, sincere and slightly emotional. He said that once the media heard what Mick McCarthy had said to the players that morning would become clear to everyone why the squad had had no choice but to back the manager in excluding Keane.
"I'm best to explain the sequence of events to you to help you understand. At seven thirty this morning word filtered around that Mick had offered an olive branch to Roy. By breakfast time thoughts were racing." It soon became clear that Quinn's thoughts had been racing for some time.
Last Sunday morning it was he who unilaterally set in train the process which it was hoped would lead to Ropy Keane coming back into the squad.
Quinn called the London solicitor Michael Kennedy. It was Quinn who introduced the Kerry born Kennedy to Keane some years ago and Keane and Kennedy have a closeness which goes beyond the normal relationship of player and agent. Kennedy was eager to help but found Keane angry and intransigent. He set about chipping away at his resolve .
Quinn meanwhile began working on the squad and on Mick McCarthy. Without saying it he himself had become an example of how the issue could be moved on. The victim of a series of personal; attacks from Keane, Quinn kept his eye on the big picture and continued to push. Steve Staunton was an important ally in this process untl such time as his wife contacted him in a state of some distress the day before yesterday saying that she had had enough of reading Keane's attacks on Staunton. The Aston Villa player took a back seat at that point.
The process had continued though. Sources in Ireland and Japan have confirmed that through Monday afternoon both sides thought that a formula had been agreed and that Keane would issue an apology either in his TV interview or in private afterwards.
Instead he performed impressively and with emotion and presented himself as a sympathetic and sincere figure while his words stopped short of the desired apology. Unfortunately in the Royal Hotel in Izumo the squad and manager were working off a mere black and white transcript of the interview. Keane's emotion was lost in the transcription. To his old friends it seemed like more of the same.
"At half ten Mick called a meeting which he will speak about in greater detail later. " said Quinn "He effectively ended any chance of Roy Keane appearing at the World Cup finals. He left the meeting and asked us to have a chat among ourselves to see how we felt about it. We were left with no alternative. All twenty two of us voted unanimously to back him." The vote was unanimous from the twenty two players who at one point asked the technical staff and management to leave the room so that they might discuss the issue alone for ten miniutes. At that point Quinn asked every player in the room in turn to give their opinion. There was no lobbying just quiet words. The result was the players short statement.
"I think after you speak to Mick you'll understand that we had no alternative." said Quinn. Did he make it clear that it was either Roy Keane or himself? Quinn was asked.
"I think it's really up to Mick to give you the details" said Quinn "but you wouldn't be too far away." This was news to Mick McCarthy whose press conference began at 8 p.m. and ended in light farce some eleven minutes later "Is that right?" said McCarthy when told of Quinn's statement " well, I didn't give them an ultimatum, not a recommendation. If the players wanted the situation reversed I would go with them. I would back them." A sharp difference then in the players version of events and the managers in explaining how the rather harsh statement came to be released.
But nothing seemed right with the manager. McCarthy was accompanied by Brendan Menton, Secretary of the FAI. Menton wanted things to be short and sweet. McCarthy wanted to explain.
As McCarthy went to answer one question Menton cut across him.
Brendan Menton: We are not interested in exacerbating this situation.
Mick McCarthy: I think there's some issues to be answered of course Brendan Menton: I think this is not the time McCarthy: NO? Menton: I think the important thing is preparation for this game.
Conclusions? That what Mick McCarthy felt about Roy Keane would not have been allowed by the FAI to interfere with attempts to get the superstar back in harness. As McCarthy spoke a last attempt to rescue Keane for the World Cup was underway, influences and agencies unseen were still hustling to broker a reconciliation. Afterwards the smart money was saying that Mick McCarthy will jump before he is pushed and the FAI will have the smart boy wanted sign in the window by the end of July.
McCarthy seemed willing to speak about the nitty gritty of what had gone on. Menton less so.
Mick, did you accuse Roy of feigning injury, did that start it? "No. He lost his temper from the first second I spoke.
He lost his temper? Menton intervened again: "The association doesn't want to revisit this, the timing of it, resurrecting itself. I think Mick has said what he has to say." "I think the question was in terms of picking and choosing games actually." continued McCarthy frankly " but it was about friendly games and playing in friendlies. No I don't play in them anymore. They are for other people. Yes the Iran game was mentioned in terms of picking and choosing games. I'm not going to go down that line." And Menton made one final intervention and closed the press conference down. We had at that stage a gaping disparity between the managers version of events as to what happened in the team hotel yesterday morning and the teams version of events. We had an admission that Keane's commitment had been questioned at one stage on that night in Saipan? We had no chance to ask Mick the vital question. Did he in his heart of heart want Roy Keane back? And while we went away to mull on it all Keane issued his own statement, the final efforts to retrieve something worthwhile from his relationship with the team and McCarthy having failed.
The future? Short term a difficult world Cup which we can only hope galvanises the younger players on the team and as a bonus maybe throws up the odd hero. Long term, Mick McCarthy looks like a man who has had enough. A new manager, a fresh start, more serene times for Keane. He'll probably wear the Irish jersey again.
For the rest of us, the joy is gone out of this World Cup and it will be a long time before we look forward to another on with the same innocent anticipation. We have made a comedy of ourselves on the world soccer stage and something that should have given us so much simple pride has become a nightmare. You'll never beat the Irish.
