Keane: Why I walked out

Roy Keane maintains that if he hadn’t been accused of faking injury in order to skip playing for Ireland, he would have played at the 2002 World Cup finals.

With the 10th anniversary of Saipan just two weeks away, Keane insisted in Dublin yesterday that people still miss the point about why he walked out of the Irish camp on the eve of the finals in Japan and South Korea.

And despite his very public criticism at the time about Ireland’s preparations, Keane says that right up until the moment at that infamous team meeting when he claims Mick McCarthy accused him of feigning injury to miss the second leg play-off game against Iran — a claim the then manager has always denied — he was ready and willing to play in finals.