Robson interested in Ireland job
The former Old Trafford favourite and England captain has thrown his hat into the ring following Mick McCarthy's decision to resign, but has denied being contacted by the Football Association of Ireland.
Robson told MUTV: ''I have not had any contact, nobody from the Irish FA has been in touch. But if it is true that they would like to talk to me, I would be very interested.''
Robson admitted the quality of the Republic's squad, especially of up-and-coming players, would be of particular interest to him.
''They have got some smashing players and it would be a good job,'' added Robson. ''There is a lot to work with with the quality of player they have. It's the type of job I am looking for.''
Robson, whose friendship with Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane could count in his favour, has been out of management since leaving Middlesbrough last year.
Meanwhile, upwards of 14 of the 22 players who represented Ireland in the World Cup were interviewed by officers of Genesis, the consultants engaged by the FAI to conduct an enquiry into their management of Ireland's involvement in the tournament.
A total of 87 people were either interviewed or made written submissions to the consultants who will make an initial presentation to FAI officers today before submitting the written results of their review.
Mr. Alistair Grey and Mr. Maurice O'Connell will make the presentation to the FAI and the results of their findings are expected to be made public next week. Mr. Grey yesterday said: "We received fantastic co-operation from all the groups we approached and we spoke with the FAI management team, the coaching staff, the administrative staff, the officer board, the players and press representatives.
"Only one person declined our invitation to make a submission and then he spoke for 20 minutes so you can say we received total co-operation from every source, including the players and the clubs."
Mr. Grey declined to identify the players who were interviewed and also declined to confirm or deny whether Roy Keane had been approached and whether he had made a submission.
"The idea is that after our discussions with the FAI tomorrow we will then prepare a written report specifying the main conclusions, " he said.
"I am aware the FAI are keen to make the report public as soon as possible and it would be our hope that this report will put into context exactly where international football stands in Ireland."
It is inevitable that whatever the main thrust of the report will be, it will involve some degree of criticism of the FAI and the international squad's management team led by Mick McCarthy because there were flaws in the arrangements.
The key issue is whether those flaws were major or minor and whether they were serious enough to damage the preparation of the squad.
The demands of the tournament were many and varied not least because of the distances that had to be travelled, the climatic conditions involved and the physically punishing programme of playing so many key games in such a short space of time.
The FAI and the former manager, Mick McCarthy, have all freely said that some problems would have been handled in a different way if they were facing the same issues again.
Indeed Mr. John Delaney, Hon. Treasurer, said on TV this week that it would be the intention of the FAI to immediately implement changes suggested by Genesis.
In this context it will be interesting to see whether the report of Genesis will make any reference to a lack of experience within the Irish camp for it was eight years since Ireland were last involved in the finals of a major championship.
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