Today in surprising Irish football news, former Cork City attacker George O'Callaghan has signed El Hadji Diouf for Sabah FC. That's right, the one time mercurial king of Turners Cross is now managing the Malaysian second-tier side and he has managed to convince Diouf to sign up for the forthcoming season.
Ready to go #sabah pic.twitter.com/8LClIridkr
— The real G10 (@georgieoc7) November 12, 2014
And as if George O'Callaghan signing Diouf is not enough to interest Irish fans, according to New Straits Times, there's also a few other recognisable names on O'Callaghan's shopping list.
The 33-year-old forward from Senegal who is among five foreign players eyeing four slots with the state team was greeted by coach and manager George O'Callaghan.
The others bidding to earn their place are Australian midfielder Mitrovic Srecko who played for the team last year, Brazilian defender Tales Dos Santos and strikers Eamon Zayed from Libya and Irish Roy O'Donovan.
League of Ireland veteran Zayed was last playing for Sligo Rovers while former Cork man O'Donovan has been playing for Brunei DPMM in the Singaporean S-League.
However, it seems that O'Callaghan's hopes of signing his former teammate are fading as Sabah have released a statement denying that O'Donovan could be moving to Malaysia.
Following a recent photograph of Roy O’Donovan (Brunei DPMM striker) on our website we would like to clearly state that the player is only in Kota Kinabalu for personal reasons after the completion of the S-League (Singapore) season. The club would like to state that there is no professional reason for Mr. O’Donovan being here in Sabah at this time.
Sabah FA General Manager, George O’Callaghan said, “I have known Roy and his wife for several years now and Roy is over here on a short holiday. I understand that it was a club official, who innocently posted a picture of Roy, following his arrival at the airport, on our website without knowing the full ramifications of their actions. Naturally I am looking into it fully as this is not the professional image that we want to be portraying at this club.”
H/T: Alan Smith
