New film about the Saipan bust-up with Roy Keane

Steve Coogan is to star as former Ireland manager Mick McCarthy in a new film about his bust-up with captain Roy Keane ahead of the  2002 World Cup.

Éanna Hardwicke, who played Ben Field in The Sixth Commandment, will play Keane in Saipan, which will go into production this summer. The Saipan incident was a very public spat in May 2002 when the team was preparing in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which resulted in Keane being sent home from the squad. The incident divided public opinion in Ireland and rumbles on to this day.

Filmmakers Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn are set to direct from an original script by Paul Fraser and the film is expected to hit cinemas in summer 2025.

Producers Macdara Kelleher and John Keville said in a statement: ‘A million words have been written about what happened on that fateful week in 2002 on the tiny island of Saipan. 

‘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". 

‘We are so excited to have Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn direct this iconic story with our equally iconic cast.’

And the directors said: ‘We’re thrilled to be working with this extraordinary cast and creative team to tell the story of an infamous moment in Irish and football history that drew battle lines across a nation, cast its hopes, dreams and sense of identity into disarray, and briefly made a tiny volcanic island in the Pacific one of the most famous places on earth.’

In 2005, Father Ted creator Arthur Mathews wrote a play about the incident – I, Keano  – reimagining it as a Greek myth. The comedy was described as‘Up Pompeii meets Father Ted with a hint of Spitting Image’.

Published: 29 Jul 2024