The Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy admits that he may be followed by the bad aroma of the Roy Keane scandal for the rest of his life.
The former Manchester City and Celtic defender says that the episode that saw Keane sent home from the tournament in Japan and Korea in the summer may never go away.
Before the first match in Ireland's European Championship qualification process, McCarthy gave a press conference. He found himself still being asked questions about a player who has no role in international football at present.
McCarthy did not appear pleased to be asked about the questions.
He said: "The more people give it legs, the more it is going to run and run - it is an unfortunate fact of life.
"I don't know when it is going to end. It probably will still be going on when I have lost my teeth and my eyesight and all my hair has gone. I'll be sitting drinking my pint and someone will say: 'There's that bloke who sent Roy Keane home from the World Cup'.
McCarthy said that his decision to send Keane home had not mitigated his feelings about the player's ability on the football pitch.
He argued: "I am on record as saying that when Roy played for us in the World Cup qualifying campaign we were a better team, and we all wanted him to play. But it is an unfortunate fact of life that it is not going to happen.
"Roy was going to retire after the World Cup anyway, but he has chosen not to. There is a suggestion he may have played if I wasn't here, but I can't do anything about that, and if that adds a little bit more pressure to me then so be it."
The Yorkshireman said that Keane's supporters would use Ireland's final position at the World Cup as a stick with which to beat the Ireland boss. But McCarthy suggested that no-one could ever say with any certainty what would happen if Keane had played.
"Whatever happens, it is still results-based. If Roy was playing and we lost here or didn't qualify, it is still the same. If because he isn't playing and we don't get the right results then people want to scream from the rooftops that he should be coming back, I can't do a thing about it.
"It is a very sad situation that one of the world's greatest players is not playing for his country, but that is not my doing and I cannot do anything about it.
"If it adds a bit more pressure then bring it on, because I have lived with that pressure in the past before and it is not going to affect me any more - I shall keep trying to smile."
McCarthy played down the difficulty of playing away against a team whose performances at the World Cup caused riots in Moscow.
"I was sitting having a coffee with someone and they said: 'This is a tough game for you'.
"But I bet the Russian coach has been sitting somewhere considering the fact that Ireland is a tough game for him," McCarthy said..
"It is good when people expect us to win because it means we have good players. That is better than people expecting us to get beaten as obviously that would mean our players weren't so good."
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