The news about Jack Grealish has been bad for some time. But it was never worse than it was yesterday. Jonathan Barnett, the man who represented Dwaine Chambers when he was banned for using performance enhancing drugs, the man who was had to pay a 100,000 pound fine and stay out of football for 18 months for his involvement in getting his client Ashley Cole from Arsenal to Chelsea, was all of a sudden speaking for Ireland U-21 Jack Grealish.
Barnett was speaking about his megabucks client Gareth Bale but he may as well have been speaking about Grealish.
“When we first got together when he (Bale) was 15, we talked about whether he was going to play for England or Wales. I nearly got my head bitten off by his dad, who is fanatically Welsh, and his mum," Barnett said at Soccerex.
“He could have qualified through his grandmother and I tell you that it has cost him millions and millions of pounds. You can imagine what it would have been like if he were playing for England next summer in the Euros... but he does love playing for Wales.”
Emphasis ours. Barnett runs something called the Stellar Group. The Telegraph put Barnett in Jorge Mendes territory this year, essentially naming him England's most powerful football agent.
Grealish had been represented by his father up to this summer. There had been confusion and feet-dragging from the Grealish camp over the past 12 months but his appearance in Dublin in March made it clear that Grealish still valued his Irish ties and wanted to weigh up his options.
According to people who follow Irish football closely, something changed definitively in the Grealish camp over the last few months. Once Grealish enlisted Jonathan Barnett, it was clear there was no way back for Ireland. It was a signal of Grealish's own intent for positioning himself as a professional footballer. Barnett, as he made clear yesterday, is a man who only sees international football as a means to enhance a player's financial worth.
It is impossible to imagine him advising his client to consider an international football career with Ireland. Will he ever crack England's XI? Who knows. But the door looks shut, the saga seems over.
