Haaland Ruins His Own Case!

[Red Devil]

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

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 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.

He is currently in America preparing to be operated on again by knee expert Richard Steadman, who saved the careers of Alan Shearer, Ronaldo and Jamie Redknapp.

Haaland has been told by doctors that - despite what he wrote last year - it is possible that his standing left leg sustained critical damage in the challenge.

Even though Haaland admitted he initially had suffered no ill-effects from Keane's tackle, top sports lawyer Max Duthie still expects the case to go to court.

'What he has said about the tackle will not help his case but I still believe he has a good chance of succeeding,' he said. 'Being told that a fellow professional deliberately set out to injure you must be a bitter pill to swallow and he will want to take action.'

United, who as Keane's employers are almost duty-bound to stand by their player rather than distance themselves from his actions, are almost certain to provide conflicting medical evidence in a case which Duthie believes will take over 12 months to solve.

'The case will probably boil down to a judge's interpretation of the medical evidence and the percentage of damage caused by the tackle.

'Even if Haaland can prove the tackle caused more problems to his left leg, Keane will no doubt claim the injury he was already carrying are a greater reason for his present condition.

'Then it is down to the judge to decide just how much Keane is liable.'

Two similar high-profile cases have had contrasting results, with Chelsea's Paul Elliott failing in a claim against Dean Saunders for a tackle which ended his career, while Gordon Watson was awarded almost £1million after Kevin Gray was found to have committed a reckless tackle which threatened the Bradford striker's career.

United are confident that the fact Haaland had a pre-existing problem will work heavily in their favour but are nevertheless disappointed that they never managed to see a manuscript of Keane's soon-to-be-released book. Manager Sir Alex Ferguson has read it but requests from the club to Keane's publishers proved fruitless.

With Keane maintaining that his conscience is clear after playing a part in his team's 1-0 Premiership win over West Bromwich on Saturday, it was left to his ghost writer Eamon Dunphy to begin a belated damage limitation process.

Journalist and former Republic of Ireland midfielder Dunphy claimed yesterday that he had used 'artistic licence' and had 'paraphrased' many of Keane's opinions.

Dunphy said: 'There is the passage about Haaland and I am as much responsible for that, as a writer, rather than Roy. I should take the rap.'

However, Dunphy did admit that Keane read and approved the text.

ESPN

[mcfc]

ban keane from football make him pay for it
he is a animal. one point though how come he waited till alfi was on the floor to go up to him and mouth it off, he aint that hard is he

[Mark]

ban keane from football make him pay for it
he is a animal. one point though how come he waited till alfi was on the floor to go up to him and mouth it off, he aint that hard is he

lol can't see that but maybe. Why did Haaland mouth off when Keane was down the 1st time

[happy Axeman]

because keane tried to cripple him and got injured himself, I would of called him a ham shanker too, wouldnt you?

[mcfc]

id call him more than that

[fatalf]

lets face facts keane is a thug and the fa should ban him for his comments if they have the guts and are not scared of man u

[Red Devil]

Na na nana na! Sticks and stones etc. They never banned good old Vinnie Jones or Kenny Burns in their day - so why Keano?

[mcfc]

cos they never wrote a book trying to make money about going out to break peoples legs

[Red Devil]

Oh of course not - thats why Vinnie Jones made a video instead !!! *looks skyward*

[mcfc]

no the video is nothing about him holding a grudge and going public saying i went out and got him. the video was about hard men, not animals ruining others lively hood.
they were hard and fair with a sly dig etc

[Red Devil]

Hmmmm and here's me thinking that KK had in his training academy

[mcfc]

had what ?

[Red Devil]

Vinnie Jones Video

[bluemoon32]

Vinnie jones :??? how the hell did he ever play pro football? & we even capped the pr**k worse player of all time

[Red Devil]

Vinnie jones :??? how the hell did he ever play pro football? & we even capped the pr**k worse player of all time

AH! So you admit it - there is some players allegedy worse than Keano

[mcfc]

mate im not saying anything about keanes talent he can play football, thats the problem
if he sorted his head out and just went out and played he would be world class

[Red Devil]

mate im not saying anything about keanes talent he can play football, thats the problem
if he sorted his head out and just went out and played he would be world class

Hmmmm? OK then, like he did at Chelsea - classic performance!

[bluemoon32]

I thought Keane looked out of sorts against chelsea

[bluemoon32]

A front-bench politician has called for the police to prosecute Roy Keane for assault for his horror tackle on Manchester City's Alf Inge Haaland.

The Liberal Democrats spokesman on sport, Bob Russell, believes Keane's controversial lunge was a crime because it was a premeditated attempt to harm Haaland.

And Colchester MP Russell has written to Greater Manchester Police calling for them to act on the April 2001 incident.

Russell stated Keane's "'violent tackle was premeditated and was, therefore, a deliberate assault".

The letter goes on to state: "Acts of assault, whether in the workplace or at entrances to nightclubs, hould not be viewed differently simply because one occurred during a football match while another was at a drinking venue.

"When is football going to realise that it cannot be above the law of the land that relates to everyone else?

"I am inviting the chief constable to regard the written admission of assault by Roy Keane as seriously as any other assault at any other location and to view my letter as a formal report of a crime," said the letter quoted in The Observer.

Think this will help Haaland?

[mcfc]

is he a colchester blue lol

[bluemoon32]

lol...most probably he's just another politician jumping on the bandwagon, phoney Blair will probably ask him to join the Thatcher party oooppsss the labour party