Kerr still keen to work in football - but not in Ireland

BRIAN Kerr has said that he is keen to get back into football but doesn’t expect to work in Ireland again.

And he has claimed his only contact with the FAI since being let go as Irish manager was a letter in which he was asked to return property belonging to the Association.

Kerr admitted that the end of his reign as Irish manager was painful.

“I’d worked for nine years for the association so to be dispatched and cut off more or less overnight was quite hurtful,” he told Sky Sports News.

“I received a letter from the association basically telling me the terms of the ending of our agreement and requesting the return of certain items the association considered I had that belong to them. Otherwise I have had no conversation with them.

“Of course you feel that maybe you were owed a little bit more of an explanation. But if people don’t want to do that, that’s fine by me, I’ll move on. But it wouldn’t be how I would have done my job.”

Kerr said he was lifted by the reaction of the public after he lost his job.

“It’s been almost unbelievably supportive,” he said. “I’ve had cards and letters from all sorts of people.”

The former manager insisted some of the criticism of Ireland’s performances under his watch was unfair.

“If people analyse properly and deeply the strength of the squad we had, the type of systems that the players were playing in, the opposition that we were playing against - if people are realistic about it they will look at it and say we got it right almost always. There were days when we made mistakes, but that’s football.

“It’s funny now. I’m in the situation where I’m still watching matches and still watching some of our players playing. And my reaction is often ‘I need to talk to him and tell him some little thing I have thought of that he can improve on’.”

Asked if the next manager should be Irish, he said: “We’ve had a non-Irish manager who was very successful in the past. I think Irish people understand Irish culture and understand what’s different about Irishness and the Irish team. It doesn’t mean someone who isn’t Irish can’t get to the root of what makes Irish people tick. But I think it is an advantage to be Irish.”

And he made it clear that’s he’s anxious to get back into the game - though not in this country.

“I don’t see myself working in Ireland again. Of course I want to stay in football. At this stage I don’t know where that’s going to be, whether it’s going to be in the UK or on the continent. But I definitely want to work. I feel that I’m a much better manager and a much better person for the time I spent as senior manager. I’m just disappointed it wasn’t longer.”

Meanwhile, Chris Hughton, Kerr’s assistant coach in the Irish job, has said he was not surprised when his own role ended with the manager’s departure. And he added that he felt the FAI had got it wrong in letting Kerr go.

Said the Spurs coach: “It was an honour when Brian asked me to be his assistant but I was always under the impression that my appointment only ran in line with his position.

“I really enjoyed working with different players at international level and I will miss it. Personally, I think it was the wrong decision to get rid of Brian. If you look at his record it was extremely good against some difficult opposition.”

Former Ireland striker Niall Quinn has taken Roy Keane to task for the alleged verbal attack on teammates ‘censored’ by MUTV.

In his column in The Guardian newspaper last Saturday, Quinn referred to United’s loss to Lille last week in the Champions League.

“Then again, they did not have the benefit of the best preparation,” said Quinn, “due not least to the farcical and self-serving intervention by Roy Keane. As far as I am aware, humiliating your colleagues in public is not the best way to foster team spirit.

“From his team-mates’ point of view, do they really see that as a genuine attempt to get a positive reaction or was it a rant from someone supposedly so committed to United that he has let everybody know how much he loves the idea of a move to Celtic?”

Quinn and Keane clashed in the aftermath of the Saipan controversy in 2002, when Keane and Manchester United visited Quinn’s Sunderland.