It’s official - Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane are Irish football’s new dream team.
The unlikely pair will take charge of the national team starting with next week’s friendly against Latvia in Dublin.
FAI chief executive John Delaney confirmed on Tuesday that O’Neill and Keane have agreed a two year deal with an option for another two years.
O’Neill will be formally unveiled at a Dublin press conference on Saturday with Keane due to meet up with the players and the media for the first time on Monday.
Delaney has welcomed O’Neill’s decision to accept the FAI offer and insisted his troubles with Keane are all in the past.
The FAI CEO told Irish state broadcaster RTE: “My discussions with Roy last week were brilliant and will have no problems working together.
“There’s lots written about Roy Keane and John Delaney and Roy Keane and the FAI or whatever may be. I’ve never really spoke to Roy Keane on my own.
“We’ve all said things in the heat of the moment and look back and say ‘God I’m sorry I said that, or I shouldn’t have said that’ or maybe there was a different context at the time.
“But when we met last week I was very impressed by him and very taken by him.
“We spoke about the past for about 30 seconds and we all agreed, Martin O’Neill, Roy Keane and myself, that we need to do the best for Irish football, we want to make Irish football great, we want to go to a major tournament in France in 2016 European Championships and work together as a team.
“We met that night, we met the following morning and I’ve been speaking to him, text messages or whatever it is, and everything has been absolutely brilliant so far."
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