Game on after passport check
Tuesday, 27 March 2001The Republic of Ireland's World Cup qualifier against the minnows of Andorra goes ahead here tomorrow after a bizarre, pre-match personnel inspection.
The Football Association of Ireland yesterday passed on to FIFA a tip received from an anonymous source that up to six members of the Andorra squad are not truly eligible to represent one of world soccer's recent recruits. And today official FIFA match commissioner Leon Walker, of Switzerland, insisted on visiting both squads in their hotels and ordered all players to line up with their passports open on the picture page.
Bernard O'Byrne, the FAI's chief executive, said: "It is a most unusual procedure but we've never really had any reason to believe anything was wrong. Having received the information, albeit from an anonymous source that we could not check, we felt obliged to pass it on to FIFA and let them deal with it ahead of the match. We just wanted to ensure there was no possibility of becoming embroiled in something after the game."
Andorra, an independent sovereign state since 1993, have several players who have previously represented Spain at junior competitive level among their ranks. However, they have pointed out that FIFA granted special dispensation to Andorra to adopt specified players who previously had only Spanish qualifications in football terms and this has now been confirmed by the football's world governing body.
Filed by Pat Nugent
