FENLON: I think any club would be mad if they didn’t want Damien Duff…

RUMOURS of Damien Duff’s imminent arrival to Shamrock Rovers reached fever pitch on Tuesday night when several seats appeared to be reserved for the Duff family in Tallaght Stadium.

With several journalists snapping pictures of the seats and sharing the images across Twitter and on other social media sites, fans remained on the edge of their own seats throughout the game in the hope of getting a sight of the former Chelsea man.

However, there was no sign of Duff on a night when the Hoops booked their place in the second qualifying round of the Europa League, and speaking to Off The Ball on Wednesday evening, manager Pat Fenlon revealed the club are hopeful of speaking with the former Republic of Ireland international again in the coming weeks.

“We spoke to Damien and we had a good chat with him and we sort of parked it because he was doing his coaching badges and we were involved in a European game” stated Fenlon.

“Obviously, we’ve progressed in that as well so I’m sure we will speak again over the next few days. So we’ll see where it gets but I’ve said it before, I think any club would be mad if they didn’t want Damien Duff in their squad and that’s something we would be interested in.”

Speaking to The Echo, Shamrock Rovers Chairman, Jonathon Roche said the €410k prize money already now secured from Europe will be “reinvested back into the club”.

UEFA increased the revenue for teams in this year’s European club competitions, and this further added to the speculation that Duff was on the verge of signing for the club, but Roche said “there is nothing in the story but newspaper speculation, but Rovers would be interested”.