Soccer: PFA welcomes Haaland peace offering

The Professional Footballers’ Association has voiced its concern at the spat between Roy Keane and Alfie Haaland and hopes the pair can settle their differences.

Keane rekindled their four-year feud when he caught Haaland with a late, knee-high tackle in the Manchester derby.

The Manchester United skipper was sent off and compounded his crime by standing over the stricken Haaland and shouting at the Manchester City captain before walking off.

Keane is believed to have made reference to an incident four years ago when he injured his cruciate ligaments trying to foul Haaland.

Haaland was livid over Keane’s tackle and the Norwegian was quoted as saying "I don’t think he is mentally right" and "I really dislike United and I can’t stand their players".

Haaland has now tried to defuse the situation by claiming he does not hold a grudge against Keane and that he does not hate the United players.

PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor welcomed Haaland’s conciliatory line and he hopes it will bring an end to the unpleasant affair.

"Of course we are concerned by this," he said. "It's not something we’re happy about and it’s unfortunate.

"In professional sport we have such problems and things can go wrong between individuals and incidents like this can happen in any team sport, such as cricket.

"We just hope that the matter has been sorted out and that there won’t be any such problems in the future.

"We don’t want to see this because it can cause problems and build up grudges before games and set the wrong tone for games.

"If needs be we will do our best to make sure this does not happen again and that they bury the hatchet, metaphorically speaking."