The clash between Keane and McCarthy could be seen in a wider cultural context

Before a ball was kicked in anger, the 17th World Cup exploded with Roy-rage. A simple case of vituperative prima-donnaism being stamped on, or was there something more to that infamous spat? Chris Nawrat reports

IMAGINE you're the head of a department, and your most talented and successful employee is railing against the working conditions and that his colleagues are not pulling their weight. And that unless this changes the company could go under. Meanwhile senior management are living like fat cats while scrimping and saving on working conditions and engendering a culture of "it doesn't really matter, we're only here for the crack".

It's obvious what you would do. You'd bring everybody from the office cleaner to the senior staff into a meeting and accuse your most successful employee of being disloyal, feigning sick notes and trying to run the show. Even though you know his high performance is predicated on his determination to be ultra-professional, and a winner. He is also a fiercely loyal company man, dismayed by corporate mis-management, and highly volatile.

You choose this public forum, despite the fact you know he has a short fuse.

I have no idea what man-management courses Mick McCarthy has taken, or what management manuals he has read, but the scenario I have outlined could only have had one outcome. And 'clearing the air', 'settling differences', 'let's sort this out like fully-grown adults in private' were clearly not in the index of any of his management books.

So, all the mediations by Alex Ferguson, the Taisoeach and Niall Quinn, to try to get Roy Keane back into Ireland's World Cup squad also could only have had one outcome. Keane had crossed a line no worker can ever get away with - short of a full-scale revolution. He had challenged management's right to manage. Unforgiveable.

Unless, of course, he publicly recanted. But Keane couldn't, because his complaints -- in his mind -- were fully justified. The facts are straightforward and uncontested. The Irish squad had to endure a 17-hour flight via Amsterdam and Tokyo to the remote Pacific island of Saipan simply because they were sponsored by KLM, the Dutch airline.

The island had no football pitch. The makeshift training ground was three-quarters rock hard, the rest a quagmire - and the wrong size. The training kit, including boots, were held up in customs. The Irish squad had to train in their own clothes. Apart from the goalkeepers, who said they were too tired to play in a five-a-side practice match. Keane, the Irish captain, went ballistic at the amateurism of it all.

Now, there are two overlapping explanations for why what happened next, happened. First is the long-standing bad blood between Keane and McCarthy dating back to when McCarthy was bowing out of the Irish national side, and Keane emerging into it. The second is the clash of cultures between the Old Ireland and the New.