Martin O'Neill has described the joke he made in front of a large audience at the Cork Opera House last Wednesday night about not wanting people to think that he and Roy Keane are "queers" as "crass" and "inappropriate," and apologised at some length for what he said on the night.

Speaking after the Irish squad’s training session – in which Robbie Brady’s involvement was hampered by a back problem that is not thought to be serious – he said that he had known immediately that the remark was unacceptable and he expressed what appeared to be heartfelt regret at the thought of having offended people.

“I did a thing down there at the Opera House,” he said of the event, which was recorded for Today FM but edited so as to omit the remarks in question. “Obviously I apologise now for the comment. It was inappropriate and I might turn around and say ‘crass’ now.

Upset people

“I was asked to do something, at the end of the day it was inappropriate, that comment, which I definitely apologise for. A genuine apology, if it has upset people. Almost the minute I had said it, I realised that I should not have said that, absolutely. I should not have said it.”

O’Neill seemed genuinely pained by the idea of having said it, although the conversation with journalists from daily newspapers was slightly disjointed. On the one hand, he accepted that he had been in the wrong and that the criticism had been justified.

Author

However, on the other, he took issue with the author of a piece that he felt had suggested he was "smug" and had been "on his uppers" when he got the Ireland job.

“I’ve been in this job about two-and-a-half years and I’ve never been smug about anything,” he said. “When we qualified here I felt as if the choice of John [Delaney] to take me on here was vindicated, but I never felt smugness.

“And, remarkably, when I took this job I turned down three other offers at club level. So I was not on my uppers, believe it or not. I took the job because I wanted to do it. I felt it was an honour to do it and following some very, very good people, very good people who have done the job.

“Jack Charlton starting it, it was really great, Mick McCarthty doing very well, then [Giovanni] Trapattoni. So I felt as if it was an honour coming here to do this job. And I still feel the same way, absolutely.

“So I am certainly not smug,” he continued. “I have been described as a number of things in my life, not all complimentary, but smugness is not something I do.”

Returning to the subject of last Wednesday's comment, he recalled that he had played with Justin Fashanu, who was gay, at a couple of different clubs and insisted that he viewed him in the same way he did his other team-mates.

Asked about the call by the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network that he publicly endorse the greater involvement in sport of the LGBT community, he said: “I’ve no problem saying it, absolutely not. Not at all. I will do, first of all if it helps the apology, and secondly if it’s taken in the right spirit, I will definitely do it.”

He went on to address the comments made by Roy Keane immediately after the Belarus game and the media the next day in which his assistant was quite critical of some of the players who had featured at Turner’s Cross.

Tongue in cheek

Some of the Corkman’s comments were clearly tongue in cheek, but the underlying tone was certainly critical and it would have been hard for somebody like Aiden McGeady to laugh off an observation from the former Manchester United star like: “I think he can do a lot better than last night, but maybe that’s the story of Aiden’s career.”

Keane apparently apologised to the players subsequently and O’Neill acknowledged that the 44-year-old probably overstepped the mark a bit, even if the criticism might ultimately still have a positive effect.

“Roy has spoken to the players,” he said. “I don’t want to use the word inappropriate because it has two certain meanings at the end of it all; mine was most certainly inappropriate, his, he felt, was over the top.

“I think he’s apologised to the players and they’ve accepted it and with reasonably good heart as well. I think some of them are actually even echoing what James McClean had said to you: that it bucks you up if that’s the case.

‘People like to be praised, reasonably often [but] people have to take a bit of criticism on the chin too. Aiden is old enough to take it but I think he appreciated the apology from Roy.”