The GAA pundit had some very incendiary things to say about Ireland’s assistant manager.
It’s not like Joe Brolly to…
Let us start that again. It’s VERY like Joe Brolly to speak his mind in the most controversial of fashions, and his thoughts on Roy Keane today were fascinating.
Speaking to Newstalk’s Off The Ball, the RTÉ pundit made light of the incident involving Roy Keane last week in Portmarnock but said that the Republic of Ireland assistant manager has some very deep seated psychological issues that will prevent him from ever being a top manager.
“It always amuses me to hear soccer players described as role models. They are nothing of the kind. Keane is just, you know he is interesting and for the media it is fantastic, it’s like having a soccer coaching Kardashian,” said Brolly.
“I think that O’Neill enjoys him more than anything else. O’Neill has got broad shoulders and O’Neill is smart, he has got a lot of the things that Roy doesn’t have. Roy will never be a leader, he couldn’t be a military leader for example.
“Keane brings huge interest wherever he goes but I think he will fail wherever he goes as a manager because he doesn’t have any of the emotional intelligence that is required.
“I would imagine that he has all sorts of deep-seeded psychological issues that have never been dealt with. He seems to have an addictive personality.
“You see barristers like this as well, that freelance world. As a soccer player, he was just a freelance soccer player, all he had to do was play soccer and he was brilliant at that of course and he burned so brightly.
“But then he reaches the age of 35 and because he has never had to change or think about himself, he has never done that and his personality is absolutely set in stone.
“You see barristers like that as well, they are freelance and they come to court and you hear people ‘oh here he is now this is fantastic’ and they make fortunes of money and they live in a bubble.
“They retire at the age of 70 and they are as undeveloped in the inner life as when they were 18. I don’t think there is much in it (the hotel incident) to be honest. If you’ve got Roy Keane, it’s a bit of fun, it’s showbiz and all of that. You know people laugh at the guy, I think it’s pathetic. I must say in general I think it’s pathetic.”
When host Joe Molloy challenged Brolly on the fact that he did not know Keane personally, and therefore could not speak about his private persona, the Derry man hit back:
“I can see what his behaviours are, his public behaviours, he reacts to confrontation: ‘well I’ll punch you in the face’.
“His towering rages, the way be behaves, the constant craving for publicity. I mean the guy would walk over crushed glass to get to him. I see loads of people like him, loads of people like him coming through the court service all the time.
“They get counselling, they get all sorts of help. With Roy it is different and in a way what has happened is in truth, because he was a great footballer and all of that, he has just become a figure of fun.”
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