SOCCER: The FAI may yet hire a team of semanticists to reassure them Martin O'Neill's declaration yesterday that he is not interested in returning to football management "in the foreseeable future" or "for some considerable time," does not actually amount to him turning down a job the association does not have to fill until the spring of next year.
But few of those who witnessed the 53-year-old Northerner impressively field a succession of questions on the issue yesterday in Dublin could have come away believing he will be the next Republic of Ireland manager.
Speaking at the opening of gambling club The Sporting Emporium and upmarket bookmakers Chronicle in the centre of the city on the day Philippe Troussier was appointed national coach by the Moroccan FA and Avraham Grant resigned from the Israel manager's job, O'Neill made it clear the circumstances that had prompted him to quit Celtic earlier this year had not changed and he is not currently in the market for another job within the game.
"Well, I might as well put everything to bed in one sentence so hopefully I won't have to repeat it," he said. "I left Celtic some months ago, obviously for personal reasons and for a sabbatical out of football for a while. Those circumstances have not changed one jot at the moment and I can't see them changing in the foreseeable future.
"That rules me out of coming back into football and although I can't put a time limit on it, I will not be taking any position in football in the foreseeable future."
O'Neill left Celtic when his wife, Geraldine, was diagnosed with a recurrence of lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the immune system. She continues to receive treatment for the condition.
"I stated some time ago that, and I don't like to make such a dramatic statement but . . . football is in my blood and I want to get back into it at some stage but honestly, at this moment, I could not tell you when that stage might be," O'Neill said yesterday. He added that he did not expect it to be for "some considerable time."
He denied having been approached either "directly or indirectly" about the job, "so I don't know how my name came into the betting and I don't know who they (the FAI) would be thinking about as their candidate".
The association, however, has been actively pursuing O'Neill since the weekend when it is believed they had made contact both with his agent and a former Irish international who is a close friend. However, the FAI have not completely given up hope that the timeframe involved might allow him to re-emerge as a candidate a little further down the line although there is an acceptance that for the moment they must pursue other possibilities. Informal contacts with a number of other candidates are believed to have taken place.
The senior team's next competitive match is not until next August or September and its next friendly will not be until March 1st, with the opposition still to be confirmed. Another couple of games will follow over the remainder of the season and it is possible that one of these will be against England after an initial approach by John Delaney at a Uefa conference last week was met with a broadly positive response from senior officials at the FA.
The prospect of playing the March game with a caretaker manager is far from out of the question but it would certainly be expected that the new manager would be in place in time to benefit from the other friendlies as he attempts to weigh up his options before embarking on his first competitive campaign.
Asked about other possible men for the post O'Neill declined to be drawn, observing only that it would "a fine job for somebody", but he expressed sympathy for Brian Kerr who, he suggested, had suffered as a result of the expectations generated by Ireland's relative success under his predecessors.
"The Republic of Ireland have done fantastically well in recent years," he said. "During my time as captain of Northern Ireland we had world-class players . . . Pat Jennings, in particular, as well as an emerging Norman Whiteside and a talented Gerry Armstrong, guys who were playing top-quality football at the time.
"The Republic had the likes of (Frank) Stapleton, (Liam) Brady and Dave (O'Leary) but were unable to do anything for ages and ages and ages until Jack Charlton came in and changed things after which you had wonderful, wonderful times.
"Mick McCarthy followed and was told he would have a difficult task but I thought he did very well.
"My own view, however, is that because the nation is so small you do need your world-class players playing, if you can, all the time and at the top of their form.
"But the Republic went into some important games without their top players and that's a problem - the smaller the nation the bigger the problem. Brian Kerr was very unlucky not to have had his contract renewed," he continued. "France are a quality side, make no mistake about it and looking at it from a distance, while the Israel game was disappointing and the result was costly . . . they were desperately, desperately unlucky.
"As for the game out there, anybody can concede a goal in the last minute, tell me about it. Ultimately you've lost one game in the campaign and not qualified which is unfortunate."
He expressed the belief that because of the cyclical nature of such situations, the senior team's past achievements would probably mean that talented youngsters would continue to emerge over the coming seasons but pointed to the North's inability to field seven or eight players of real quality at the same time since their heyday as a serious concern.
Although he could never have been considered likely to accept the post at present, O'Neill's indication that he is not available leaves the field looking remarkable open with the likes of Iain Dowie, George Burley, Claudio Ranieri and a whole string of others being linked with the vacancy.
