Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill’s failure to put pen to paper on a new contract had no impact on his talks with Stoke.
O’Neill agreed a new deal verbally before the end of the World Cup qualifying campaign. He was slow to sign on the dotted line and entered talks last week with Stoke City about their vacant manager’s job.
The Telegraph report that even if O’Neill have had signed the extension with the FAI, that there is a clause in his contract that allows him to speak to any Premier League club if interested.
Telegraph journalist Luke Edwards has been following the story, he told Off the Ball.com's Joe Molloy that O’Neill’s current contractual situation had no impact on what happened over the weekend:
“It would be in the back of your mind when talking to someone that ‘I’ve given my word here’, the interesting thing here is even if Martin O’Neill had signed the two year contract he would still be entitled to talk to other clubs under the terms of his contract with the FAI. That’s been the case for four years, that’s no different to the contract he signed when he took the job.”
Exclusive full story: Martin O'Neill turns down Stoke offer to become new manager https://t.co/Oa8ZyE4gDm via @telefootball
— Luke Edwards (@LukeEdwardsTele) January 14, 2018
Edwards says O’Neill’s primary reason for turning down Stoke City’s offer was because he had made a commitment to the FAI.
He noted though that O’Neill had been discouraged by the level of criticism he received after the Republic of Ireland’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Denmark:
“After the Denmark game I think Martin was genuinely stunned by the level of vitriol that poured out in the media, words like ‘failure’ and humiliation were bandied around. He had this verbal agreement in place, he then went away and told John Delaney he wanted to think about things and asses his options.”
“There’s been interest from several clubs throughout it all he’s always come back to the idea that he had this verbal agreement in place, yes it was tempting to listen to what the clubs would say and I think we would all do that in our profession if another company offered to employ us and was offering lots of money you would listen to what they would have to say.”
“He spoke to Stoke over the weekend having made up his mind effectively that him and Roy would stay in the Ireland job.”
You can listen to the full podcast with Daily Telegraph North-East sports reporter Luke Edwards here:
