Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy spat at Saipan set for the big screen with Steve Coogan and Eanna Hardwicke starring

One of the most controversial episodes in Irish sport, the spat between Cork’s Roy Keane and the Irish manager, Mick McCarthy, in Saipan prior to the 2002 World Cup, is to get the big screen treatment and will be shown in cinemas next Summer.

Cork actor Eanna Hardwicke has been cast as the then Manchester United and Ireland skipper while Steve Coogan has been selected to play the former Ireland centre-back and the manager of the Republic of Ireland team at the World Cup finals when they were held in Japan and Korea in 2002. It was to be Ireland’s third appearance on soccer’s highest stage and we haven’t qualified since.

The 2002 row centred on the Ireland captain’s dissatisfaction with the set up in Saipan where the squad was preparing for the World Cup finals. He voiced his issues in an interview with an Irish newspaper. This led to an argument during a team meeting in which Keane and McCarthy rowed and this led to the Irish captain being sent home.

Despite attempts to heal the rift, including a famous news programme in which the late RTÉ journalist, Tommie Gorman, interviewed the Cork footballer, Keane returned to his home near Manchester to walk his dog while the Irish team went on to reach the last 16 in the World Cup.

Award Winning filmmakers Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (Good Vibrations, Ordinary Love) are set to direct from an original script by Paul Fraser (Heartlands, A Room For Romeo Brass).

Film producers, Macdara Kelliher and John Keville, said in a statement that ‘a million words had been writtend about what happened on that fateful week in 2002’.

“Next year audiences will finally get to experience first hand the feud between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy and why it was labelled "the worst preparation for a World Cup campaign ever",” they said. “We are so excited to have Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn direct this iconic story with our equally iconic cast.”