Ferencvaros sporting director Tamas Hajnal has reflected on Robbie Keane’s departure from the club.
Keane is now in talks with Celtic as one of just two candidates, having departed the Budapest side a few days after the end of the season.
It wasn’t a happy ending after Ferencvaros missed out on the Hungarian title for the first time in eight years, though the departure was a resignation, rather than a sacking.
This hasn’t stopped Hajnal from admitting that the club “need to improve” after the departure of the Celtic target.
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Ferencvaros chief Tamas Hajnal: ‘We need to improve dominance, intensity’
Hajnal said: “We sat down to review the season and of course the future was also discussed.
“At the end of the discussion, we already felt that the situation was completely open-ended – [Keane] had repeatedly expressed during the season that he did not agree with a certain set of rules and that he felt that this made his work more difficult.
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“When we got up from the table, he asked for time to think and then two days later he called me and said that he felt that, in terms of his career, it was not worth it for him to stay here under these circumstances.
“Of course, uncertainty also played a role in this, since even now it is not possible to know exactly what expectations and set of rules in the Hungarian League the clubs will work under next season.
“It is difficult to know for sure whether he would have stayed if we had won the league.
“Of course, the gold medal always creates a different emotional state, but it would not have solved the issues we talked about.
“He felt that he now had to go in a different direction for his own career and we took note of that. We analysed the league and you could say we were unlucky because ETO scored an unprecedented amount of points.
“But we don’t want to settle for that. We especially need to examine our performance in home matches.
“We need to improve our intensity, dominance, the way we play and our quality. And we trust that Balazs Borbely will bring a new approach so we can achieve our goals next season.”
Borbely has been poached from ETO FC Gyor, to whom Ferencvaros lost the title on the final day of the Hungarian season.
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Robbie Keane’s managerial record
Keane is certainly remembered fondly for his excellent form when brought to the club on loan from the second half of the 2009-10 season, a disappointing campaign for the club as a whole.
His spell managing in Israel is troubling for parts of the Parkhead support, but it clearly isn’t dissuading the club from considering him as a candidate.
His full managerial record is available here…
| Club | Tenure | Matches | Won | Drawn | Lost | Win % | Honours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maccabi Tel Aviv | July 2023 – June 2024 | 53 | 38 | 7 | 8 | 71.7% | Israeli Premier League (23/24), Toto Cup |
| Ferencváros | Jan 2025 – May 2025 | 74 | 47 | 13 | 14 | 63.5% | NB I League (24/25) |
| TOTAL | 127 | 85 | 20 | 22 | 66.9% |
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