Keano scores a Corker after pitch for South Mall property

ROY KEANE and his family have scored with a modest property investment on South Mall, Cork — buying a four-storey building for the price of a mediocre Championship league footballer.

The Cork sports star’s name has been linked to a confidential sub-€500,000 property purchase in his native city’s financial heartland, with the building likely to be registered in a Keane family member’s name.

Coincidentally, the property at 44 South Mall already had a Keane association — it was the former offices of estate agents Keane Mahony Smith, who’ve just relocated.

Now, the property, which had been marketed over Christmas with a €550,000 price tag is being put up for let with agents Remax, looking to rent it for €30,000 a year — about the annual wage paid to some FAI footballers.

News that Keane has a shoe-in on an Irish property investment may well see the currently unemployed manager and former top player inundated with other property pitches, given the distress — and now, real value, too — in the Irish property market.

Keane previously looked at buying at the upper end of the Cork house market — showing interest in a €2 million-plus home back in the early 2000s. But despite keeping close family ties here, he hasn’t been a player in the local market.

Late last year, before losing the Ipswich manager’s job, he put one of his Manchester area homes on the British market, initially seeking more than £9m (€10.24m), and falling to £7m-plus in January.

He has also bought land and a villa in Denis O’Brien’s Quinta do Lago resort in Portugal, among other investments.

Aye, Keano. Forget Saipan. Think South Mall, sterling strength, bust banks and bargain buys; Roy — your country needs you.