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Keane is, in many ways, the ultimate fans’ player. Not perhaps the most naturally gifted player of his generation, his unparalleled drive and determination to be the best lift him into a world class bracket not automatically becoming of his totalling talents. In that respect, he is a player every fan can admire simply because his competitive edge means he plays the game with the same unquenchable commitment to the cause that a fan would show if they were given the opportunity to play for their team. Without his personality, Keane the footballer would be little more than average.
On the one hand then, it is Keane’s passionate personality that endears him to football fans, or at least those of Manchester United. But the tragedy for Keane is that, perhaps inevitably, the almost demonic level to which he takes his desire means that he manages to straddle the fine – not to say blurred – line that separates the magnificent from the infamous. It is precisely because he is a great player, a player who can intimidate an opponent before he has walked onto the field, that he courts controversy. The result is that Keane will be remembered partly because he was a fine player, but perhaps more because he was, at times, a nasty one.
Those who are close to Keane, as well as the man himself, claim he is usually a shy aloof person. But Keane’s problem is that he cannot control his anger. The contorted rage of a tortured soul overwhelms his decency, and instead leads to a monster that is impossible to rein in and which is prone to erratic and unpredictable moments of madness. We have seen it throughout his career with his attacks on referees, on fellow players, and in his tendency to get himself sent off with moments of hot-headed rashness. But over the past eighteen months, those incidents have occurred with alarming regularity – starting with the original tackle on Haaland, and progressing through increasingly bitter comments towards his own team-mates to his world-cup walkout, his public attacks on the FAI and Mick McCarthy, to his astonishing book and his needless, childish sending off at the weekend. Keane is becoming uncontrollable, and it is time something was done about it.
Half the problem seems to come from Old Trafford, where Keane is lord of all he surveys. Publicly at least his manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, seems to let him do what he likes – his verbal assaults on team-mates go unchecked and United even managed to defend his revelations about Haaland in the media.
In the first place, Keane’s tackle on Haaland was a bad one, and suspicions were raised as to Keane’s intentions when the incident took place. But there was no proof – nothing that the FA could use to nail Keane for his intent to harm a fellow professional. Now, in a baffling twist, Keane has decided to openly announce that he went for Haaland, rather than the ball, and that he does not regret his actions. If, in the street on a Friday night, somebody decides to injure someone deliberately, then the result is usually at least one night in the cells and a court appearance. Yet Ferguson came out and publicly praised Keane for his honesty.
There are couple of points that come out of this. Firstly, if that line of reasoning is taken to its logical conclusion, then a murderer who has avoided detection for a year or so could simply stroll down to the police station, admit to his crime, and return home with a pat on his back for his honesty. Secondly, it is not about honesty anyway – the language in a book that Keane had overseen if not actually written appeared to glorify what was in essence an act of malice, and there has been not one hint of contrition. As a result Keane has at best failed in his responsibility as a role model to the thousands of youngsters who idolise him – and at worst he is guilty assaulting a fellow professional and has been so smug about it that the risk of him doing the same again cannot be discounted. A mini repeat came at the weekend when Keane opted to take the law into his own hands and elbow Jason McAteer after a fairly minor earlier skirmish. Once again, Ferguson’s initial response was to defend the indefensible, until it became impossible to justify that position any longer.
The trouble is that Keane has got away with saying and doing just as he pleases for far too long. By packing him off for surgery in time to conveniently coincide with a ban, United hope that their captain will effectively go unpunished. But the FA should respond and make a stand against a player who brings football into disrepute with alarming regularity. It should send out a clear message against premeditated and vitriolic violence on a football pitch and really hit Keane, and the club which stands by him, hard. Three or for games on top of a regular ban is not enough. Ten or fifteen games should be the minimum punishment for an offence of such seriousness – particularly when one bears in mind that Duncan Ferguson received a jail term for a head butt on another player. Keane lives for football, and only by depriving him of it for a significant length will Keane learn to keep his anger in check. Moreover, it will help the authorities show that they are running the show.
As for the courts, good luck to Haaland and good luck to Manchester City. The last thing we want is for football to be reduced to a farce with lawsuits hanging over every bad challenge, but in this instance they both seem fully justified in taking legal action. But for an individual like Roy Keane, losing money won’t make any difference. Losing football will – and that is where the FA can regain the upper hand. Keane has been acting like an oversize schoolboy for too long, and it is time for him to grow up. If he cannot do that, then he cannot be trusted on a football pitch. That may be the only threat Keane can understand.