In the bewildered aftermath of Seamus Coleman's injury at the Aviva on Friday night, Martin O'Neill was unwilling to engage with the line of questioning concerning his relationship with Everton manager Ronald Koeman.
O'Neill fell out with Koeman over the selection of James McCarthy for the Austria qualifier last November, and when a Sunday newspaper journalist asked him on Friday whether he was looking forward to his next conversation with Koeman, O'Neill was quoted in the Sunday Independent as saying the following:
This happens in the game, somebody's made a bad tackle on a player, and the player's lost. At club level, I've lost players in the past.
Let me be clear, I asked to speak with Ronald a couple of weeks ago, and he refused to do so, which is fine, not a problem. But Seamus Coleman's injury can happen in the game.
Granted, these are the perils of international football from a club manager' point of view, but the loss of Coleman is an enormous blow to Koeman and Everton, for which there will be very little in the way of consolation.
Everton will, however, be entitled to a financial compensation from FIFA. Paul Joyce of the London Times reports that FIFA will have to pay Coleman's wages while he is injured, as a condition under the FIFA Club Protection Programme.
The paper estimates Coleman's wages at around £50,000 per week, and with Coleman's absence from the game estimated between six and nine months, it will set FIFA back a figure somewhere between £1.2 million and £1.8 million.
In related news, FIFA are considering throwing the book at Taylor for his challenge on Coleman, with FIFA's disciplinary panel considering adding as many as four games to his automatic one-match suspension, a scenario in which he would miss the rest of Wales' qualifying campaign.
[The Times]
