{"id":521108,"date":"2026-06-06T02:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T02:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/521108\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T02:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T02:50:17","slug":"celtic-to-confirm-appointment-of-martin-oneill-after-robbie-keane-backlash-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/521108\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtic to confirm appointment of Martin O\u2019Neill after Robbie Keane backlash \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/celtic\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/celtic\/\">Celtic<\/a> are expected to confirm the appointment of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/martin-o-neill\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/martin-o-neill\/\">Martin O\u2019Neill<\/a> as the club\u2019s permanent manager after the 74-year-old agreed a one-year contract to remain in Glasgow. O\u2019Neill led Celtic to the domestic double during the second of two interim spells he undertook this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Robbie Keane had been prominent in the thoughts of the Celtic hierarchy and held talks with Dermot Desmond, the club\u2019s principal shareholder, earlier this week. But the potential appointment of Keane was met with a furious backlash by an element of the Celtic support, who objected to his managerial spell in Israel. Keane was in charge of Maccabi Tel Aviv before switching to Hungary and Ferencvaros, from whom he resigned at the end of May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">O\u2019Neill had sought time to consider his position after the Scottish Cup final win over Dunfermline. However, the sense always was that the Northern Irishman would be keen on the role on a longer-term basis. It is understood his deal will include the option for a second year. Remarkably, it comes 26 years after Desmond first coaxed O\u2019Neill to Celtic from Leicester. That first spell proved hugely successful, with Celtic winning three Scottish titles, three Scottish Cups and two Scottish League Cups under the former midfielder, as well as reaching the 2003 Uefa Cup final, which they lost to Jos\u00e9 Mourinho\u2019s Porto.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">O\u2019Neill stepped in on a short-term basis after Brendan Rodgers resigned last October. Wilfried Nancy duly replaced O\u2019Neill, with the Frenchman\u2019s disastrous tenure lasting a mere eight games. O\u2019Neill returned to successfully defend Celtic\u2019s Premiership title. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic are expected to confirm the appointment of Martin O\u2019Neill as the club\u2019s permanent manager after the 74-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[20992,18,19,17,87513,10255,132],"class_list":["post-521108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-celtic","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-martin-o-neill","tag-robbie-keane","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116700894126143558","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}