ROBBIE KEANE IS just starting out in what he hopes will be a long and successful career as a football coach.
Since retiring last November, Ireland’s all-time record goalscorer has become part of the backroom staff with the Irish international team under Mick McCarthy, while recently agreeing to work as Jonathan Woodgate’s assistant at Middlesbrough.
39-year-old Keane has openly talked about his ambitions to develop into a top manager over the coming years, so he is understandably taking both positions pretty seriously.
So the Dubliner wasn’t best pleased with the kind of questions he received during an interview with Craig Hope of the Daily Mail.
In what feels like a particularly awkward conversation, he shoots down several attempts by Hope to get extract anecdotes from his playing days.
When asked if Keane — who enjoys a sing-song — would perform for the Boro dressing room, he replied:
What the fuck? I’m not a clown. I’m not here to entertain people. What’s singing got to do with me being a coach?
“I like a laugh and joke. We don’t want people coming in here as miserable fucks. We want them to be happy, but for it to be done properly. It’s a serious job we’re doing.”
Hope then brings up the infamous story of Keane taking the Tottenham squad to Dublin for a Christmas party, reportedly without the knowledge of then-manager Harry Redknapp.
“I’m not answering these stupid questions,” is his reply. “If you want to talk about me being here, no problem. But I’m not getting into crap questions like that. I’m not interested. Why talk about that? This isn’t about that. It’s about me being at Middlesbrough.
Anyway, do you know the full story? Well, if you don’t know the full story then don’t ask me the question. I’ve never spoken about it. We had a Christmas party. Done. It’s over. Simple.”
You begin to wonder if the aim is to wind Robbie up when a question about Saipan then follows.
“Don’t even think about trying to get me sucked into talking about that, because I’m not,’ Keane states. “As I said before, every incident that I have seen over the past 25 years, I’ll take something from it and use it to my benefit.”
Read the full Daily Mail interview here
- Originally published at 11.13
