Saipan: the story behind Roy Keane’s World Cup walkout on Ireland’s football team
Don’t make the mistake of thinking Saipan is a film about the brutal second world war battle on this small Pacific island. It is, in fact, the tale of a ridiculous and heartbreaking football bust-up that almost tore a country apart.
On one side was Irishman Roy Keane, one of the greatest footballers of his generation. Captain of the Ireland team, he was a man with a volcanic temper and an insatiable will to win. On the other was mild-mannered manager Mick McCarthy, a Yorkshireman of Irish descent who had made his name as a brave, no-nonsense defender during his time as captain of Ireland.
The row that exploded on Saipan before the 2002 World Cup had even started was a slow-motion tragicomedy, lurching from one excruciating episode to the next. It began with a spat between Keane and McCarthy over training facilities. It escalated to a national crisis thanks to an ill-timed media interview – then developed into a full-blown international furore after one of the most brutal personal attacks ever seen in sport.
Now the story is being told in a new film starring Steve Coogan as McCarthy and rising star Éanna Hardwicke as Keane.
The row had – and possibly still has – the power to divide people into team McCarthy or team Keane. At the time, battles raged in pubs, on radio phone-ins and in countless newspaper articles.
The level of antagonism the row ignited underlined that this was about more than just football. The “battle of Saipan” somehow exposed deep faultlines in a country that was at a social, political and economic crossroads.
Before qualifying for the 2002 World Cup, Ireland hadn’t been to a major tournament since 1994. While those were wilderness years for the football team, the country was experiencing an astonishing economic miracle.
This once-impoverished country had transformed itself into one of the richest in Europe. GDP growth regularly hit a jaw-dropping 10% a year. Nicknamed the “Celtic tiger”, this economic transformation turned Ireland into a society that valued ambition and despised mediocrity. Keane epitomised this new Ireland – he was a self-made man, rich and with a ruthless drive to succeed.
McCarthy, though born and raised in England, represented old Ireland. He had been captain of the Irish team led by Jack Charlton that took the country on glorious boozy adventures to the European Championship in 1988 and the World Cup in 1990 and in 1994.
A green Irish army travelled the globe like a vast mobile party, while those left at home watched in disbelief as their little nation took its place among the elite footballing nations. It turned the gruff, flat-cap wearing Charlton into a living saint.
It was almost inevitable that these two versions of Ireland would eventually clash – but no one expected it to happen on a small Pacific island on the eve of a World Cup.
The Irish squad arrived in Saipan on May 18 2002 to acclimatise ahead of the tournament in Japan and Korea. Keane’s mood darkened immediately when he saw the training and catering facilities on the island. The pitch was rock hard. There were no goal posts – or footballs. Breakfast consisted of cheese sandwiches.
Keane was outraged at such amateurism, and the next day confronted McCarthy. He said he was going to leave the camp – but was persuaded to stay by others including his Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson.
Keane, still struggling to keep a lid on his rage, then agreed to do an interview with two Irish newspaper journalists. He told them in no uncertain terms what he thought of Ireland’s preparations. “I believed the people at home had a right to know the truth,” Keane would later say in his book.
The interview was explosive, and the story blew up immediately – causing a sensation around the world, but most particularly in Saipan. McCarthy, utterly shocked, called a meeting with the whole squad. To clear the air, the Ireland manager thought Keane should apologise for what he had said in the articles.
But Keane, surrounded by the entire squad, saw this as an ambush and lashed out. His visceral ten-minute attack on McCarthy in the ballroom of Saipan’s Hyatt Hotel has become legendary:
I didn’t rate you as a player, I don’t rate you as a manager, and I don’t rate you as a person. I’ve got no respect for you. The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are the manager of my country. You can stick it up your bollocks.
A visibly shaken McCarthy replied: “Roy, either you go or I go – and I am going nowhere.”
Keane left and returned to his Cheshire home, which was now besieged by reporters. His daily walks with his dog Triggs were broadcast live on rolling news channels, as the world waited to see if the player would rethink his decision and return. Despite an offer from Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern to mediate, Keane made it clear there would be no U-turn.
McCarthy and the Irish team went on to perform respectably in the World Cup, losing in a penalty shoot-out to Spain in the last 16. But how far would they have gone in the tournament if Keane had played?
What happened in Saipan is still hotly debated. In Ireland, it is seen as a battle between old and new – the dynamic new age railing against the staid, complacent past. Outside of Ireland, the story is usually framed as a clash between the ideal and the reality – between purity and pragmatism.
As the Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole wrote at the time: “The battle of Saipan is thus a classical tragedy: the inevitable clash of two inexorable forces, each of which has right on its side.”
Saipan is in cinemas from January 23
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Brian Thornton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.