Robbie Keane has finally broken his silence and revealed why he stayed on as manager of Maccabi Tel Aviv when war broke out last year.
The Republic of Ireland football legend led the Israeli club to a league and cup double and the Europa Conference League Last 16 stage, before resigning in June with one year remaining on his contract.
Keane, 44, was widely criticised in his native Ireland for choosing to continue in the post after Israel’s invasion of Gaza on October 7 last year. But he did so because he felt he had a duty of care to his staff and his players.
Speaking publicly about his experience for the first time, Keane said: “Let’s make it clear, obviously there has been a lot of stuff going on. I resigned at the end of the season from my post at Maccabi Tel Aviv.
“When the war began, we left the country, but I had five staff, I had a lot of foreign players who relied on me as their coach.
“We were winning the league, hadn’t won it in three years, we were in Europe and doing very well. My analyst for example, he has got a mortgage, a family and kids he has to feed. The decision just to step away from something, it’s not just my decision, it’s everybody else’s decision, which was tough.
“What is happening is terrible and nobody wants to see it. Hopefully it ends very, very soon. But at the end of the day, I’m a football manager and my staff have got people to look after. I have got a duty of care.
“My analyst for example was at Middlesbrough for 12 years, for him to come with me to Israel, and then for me just to walk away from that and leave him and his family…you know… because you can’t just walk into a job. It’s difficult to walk into a job straight away after leaving a post for 12 years. He is just one example, I had other staff.
“I had players calling me, ‘please don’t leave coach, don’t leave, what you have done for this club’, so I made the decision to stay until the end of the season and walk away from a big contract, another year, possibly two more years. We made that decision as a group and as a staff.
“But to go and win the league and to win the double, nobody can ever take that away from me.“
Flags in support of Palestine have been displayed by sections of the Irish support at several Ireland internationals recently, while Derry City supporters also unveiled a huge ‘Free Palestine’ banner at Lansdowne Road during the FAI Cup final earlier this month.
