Haaland admission could wreck case

Alf-Inge Haaland may have ruined his own chances of successfully suing Roy Keane and Manchester United, it emerged last night.

Lawyers acting for Haaland and his club Manchester City are preparing a £6million action over Keane's admission that he intended to injure Haaland in a Manchester derby last year.

But their hopes of winning the case will be jeopardised by an article that appeared on the Norwegian's website last May in which he said the damage to his left knee was not caused by Keane's studs-up challenge.

Haaland, 31, has not played a full match since and is now claiming the tackle may end his career.

But under the headline 'Knee Injury Wasn't Caused By Keane', he wrote: 'I want to make it clear that it was not the knee that took a knock in the Manchester derby, despite what some papers have reported.

'It's my left knee that's been bothering me and it was clearly shown on Sky that it was my right knee that took the knock. It's been bothering me for three months.'

Keane is facing the likelihood of an FA charge over the affair, which was rekindled by the newspaper serialisation of his autobiography. FA chief executive Adam Crozier said: 'What we have seen so far has not been pleasant reading.'

As Sportsmail exclusively revealed last week, Haaland has been advised by two doctors to retire after three operations in the last 16 months have failed to cure the problem.