Kevin Kilbane responds to allegations that Irish players were paid to go easy on Lionel Messi

Kilbane admits the allegations made him feel uneasy.

A bizarre article from La Nacion has been doing the rounds which suggested that disgraced Fifa official Julio Grondona paid Irish players $10,000 each to go easy on Lionel Messi during a friendly against Argentina in in 2010. The piece also claimed that Grondona arranged Argentina to be the first team to play at the redeveloped Aviva Stadium as an extra kicker to the €5m Fifa paid the FAI after the infamous Thierry Henry handball The FAI have since issued a statement denying theses allegations, while Kevin Kilbane also spoke about the article in an interview with TV3 News.

“There was no suggestion around the game that we were to stay clear of Lionel Messi and none of the players received any money as payment regarding this,” "It’s total news to me and I’m sure it will be news to a lot of the other lads as well."

Kilbane, who started left full-back for the fixture, explained his disappointment over the article, which he feels could affect the reputations of some of his former teammates.

"It is quite poor. There have been a lot of allegations aimed at us over the past month or so. Mud sticks and it’s not nice when these allegations are being brought against the players as it’s questioning us as professionals and as people. “It does seem to me like some has come up with a story where two and two makes ten. They have looked at what has happened over the past month and what sort of allegations have been made us and the have come up with a theory.”