NIALL QUINN LATEST TO WEIGH IN ON SAIPAN AS MOVIE RELEASE NEARS
Niall Quinn has become the latest to weigh in on the Saipan drama, as a film on the bust-up is set to release soon.
The film, which is set to see Steve Coogan and Éanna Hardwicke star as Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane respectively, will no doubt ignite another round of discourse over two decades after Roy Keane left the Ireland squad/was kicked off at the Saipan training ground.
With Niall playing in the 2002 World Cup during the twilight of his career, he’s given his two cents both on the bust-up and the film.
The sportsman joked that he’s heard Jack Hickey, who’s playing him, is ‘a really handsome fella’ — before weighing in on the drama as someone who was actually there.
‘I suppose it was huge at the time,’ Niall said on Ireland AM. ‘It’ll continue to be huge. And Roy is such a divisive figure — he was incredible to play with as a player, but also tough to understand. He was way ahead in this desire level [to win], and he would throw it all on the line.
‘We’d have to put up with anything as players: bad pitches, bad equipment, whatever. We were just delighted to play,’ he continued. ‘[But] we weren’t at the level where he was, he wouldn’t stand for that. I think it was something that was bubbling over for long before it happened, and it happened on the biggest stage of all.’
With the debate still raging on two decades later, Niall said that back in 2022, he was asked to read several articles on the drama — but said: ‘very quickly, you realise none of the people who had written the articles were actually there.’
‘Everybody was, you know, relying on something that they’d heard, that somebody else had said, and the whole thing just grew and grew. But, ultimately, it happened. I wish it hadn’t.’
While Niall added that the lads ‘kind of did okay,’ reaching the last 16 before suffering heartbreak in a penalty shootout against Spain, he answered the big question that has plagued the country for the last 23 years: how far would we have gotten if Roy was on the team?
‘There’s no doubt about it: had he been around for the extra time against Spain, we’d have reached another quarter final for sure.’
Saipan gets its wide release in Ireland on January 2, 2026.
Niall’s two cents on Saipan can be watched below: