Declan Rice is ready to turn his back on Ireland because of Roy Keane’s hard-line attitude, according to former Republic midfielder Jason McAteer.
England are growing increasingly confident that West Ham starlet Rice, who was born in London but has Irish grandparents, will pledge his international future to the country of his birth, even though he has appeared in three friendly matches for Ireland.
Now McAteer, who admits disliking Keane, has claimed that the Ireland assistant manager’s row with Harry Arter may have helped make up Rice’s mind.
“Declan was privy to the incident between Roy and Harry Arter in May and was put off by the whole experience,” said McAteer. “Roy is a destructive influence on the camp.”
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An audio recording that emerged last month appeared to reveal a row between Keane and Arter about the latter’s absence from training.
But Ireland boss Martin O’Neill said Keane was a “brilliant” assistant and the BBC reported that he said the recording didn’t “tally” with what happened.