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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
National
Mark Walker

Inside Celtic target Robbie Keane disagreement and talks that led to Ferencvaros exit

Robbie Keane (Image: Anna Gowthorpe / Shutterstock)

Ferencvaros have broken their silence on the showdown talks that led Celtic managerial target Robbie Keane to quit the club.

The Irish coach is reportedly battling it out with current Hoops boss Martin O'Neill to manage the champions next season.

That's led to furious protests from Celtic fans who are opposed to Keane because of his spell in management in Israel.

Keane walked out on Ferencvaros last month after they lost their league title to ETO Gyor and they moved quickly to replace the ex-Spurs star with title-winning boss Balazs Borbely.

He was unhappy with local league rules, which state every club must have at least five Hungarian players on the pitch at all times.

Now the Budapest club's sports director, Tamas Hajnal, has lifted the lid on the tense talks that saw Keane leave the club.

He said: "We sat down to review the season and of course the future was also discussed.

"At the end of the discussion, we already felt that the situation was completely open-ended - he had repeatedly expressed during the season that he did not agree with a certain set of rules and that he felt that this made his work more difficult.


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"When we got up from the table, he asked for time to think and then two days later he called me and said that he felt that, in terms of his career, it was not worth it for him to stay here under these circumstances.

"Of course, uncertainty also played a role in this, since even now it is not possible to know exactly what expectations and set of rules in the Hungarian League the clubs will work under next season.

"It is difficult to know for sure whether he would have stayed if we had won the league.

"Of course, the gold medal always creates a different emotional state, but it would not have solved the issues we talked about.

"He felt that he now had to go in a different direction for his own career and we took note of that.

"We analysed the league and you could say we were unlucky because ETO scored an unprecedented amount of points.

"But we don’t want to settle for that. We especially need to examine our performance in home matches. We need to improve our intensity, dominance, the way we play and our quality.

"And we trust that Balazs Borbely will bring a new approach so we can achieve our goals next season."

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