Speaking on RTÉ's World Cup review last night, Brendan Menton, the general secretary of the Football Association of Ireland, admitted the FAI had been caught out by the Roy Keane "affair" in Saipan and also spoke about a possible return to international football for Keane.
"I've no problem in saying, yes, the FAI was not geared up in Saipan to manage a crisis of that magnitude," Menton said. "I think our review will show that we got most things right. The one thing that caught us out was we didn't foresee a crisis of that magnitude, with Roy Keane going home."
Asked about Keane's international future, Menton said: "I want the Irish team to do as well as possible, I recognise Roy's talent as a player, I know what he can contribute and I hope the issue is resolved in the best interests of Irish football."
Would Keane come back while Mick McCarthy was still Republic of Ireland manager?
"I think that's for Roy to decide," said Menton.
When asked about criticism in some sections of the media that Ireland had underachieved, echoing Keane's views, Menton replied: ". . . in retrospect, we now have to set our targets higher, we now have to believe in ourselves. We can now achieve more than that with the team we have."
