Friends in low places

They say you should be careful what you wish for, something which the FAI delegation in Nice last weekend must have had reason to ponder on the back of a testing Euro 2016 qualifying draw.

The previous day, we’d gathered for an audience with UEFA President Michel Platini, who was in feisty enough mood, even if he did decline to address one journo’s cheeky question about what the European governing body’s new ‘Week Of Football’ concept — which will see internationals hogging television space from Thursdays through to Tuesdays — might do to the divorce rate.

He had no such qualms, however, about labelling as “a stupid rule” FIFA’s so-called triple punishment of a sending off, penalty and suspension for a professional foul committed inside the box, a demonstrably brutal sanction which cost both Manchester City and Arsenal dearly in their recent Champions League outings.

But Platini reserved his most waspish remarks for critics of the expansion of the 2016 finals in France to 24 teams. The first Euro finals in 1960, also in France, had just four teams. This was doubled to eight in Italy in 1980 and doubled again to 16 in England in 1996. But the expansion to 24 teams has not met with universal approval.

“Two or three associations — like England, Germany, the big ones — weren’t in favour,” Platini revealed in Nice, “but of the 54 member associations, 51 actually supported the tournament. So in any democracy, when the vast majority are in favour, you go forward with it, even if England and Germany aren’t in favour.”

Responding to Germany coach Joachim Low’s complaint that the expanded format would dilute and devalue the tournament, Platini snapped: “If they don’t like it, they don’t have to take part,” a suggestion taken up with what one presumes was mock gusto by German Bundesliga chief executive Christian Seifert. “I find it somewhat arrogant for a Uefa president, and maybe we should simply not play after all,” he shot back. “Then we’d see what the European Championship is still worth.” Ouch.

While Platini was painting Germany and England as the bad boys, there were pats on the head for Ireland and Scotland who, he reminded listeners, came up with the proposal for an expanded tournament in the first place.

Hurrah for us! At which point, of course, it was pretty much written in the stars that the very next day, the qualifying draw would pit Ireland, Scotland and Germany against each other in the same group, the presence of Low’s team, along with Poland and our old friends Georgia, rather softening the cough of those who’d imagined that automatic qualification for the top two — plus the fall-back of third-place play-offs — would more or less ensure Irish participation at the finals in two years’ time.

Personally, as an old-school type who still holds that international football is the very pinnacle of the sport, I don’t have a problem with the expansion of the finals to 24 teams. For obvious reasons, I’d prefer to draw a discreet veil over the 2012 finals and instead recall that covering the 2008 tournament in Switzerland and Austria was one of the best football-watching experiences of my life, those 16-strong finals serving up at least double the thrills and spills of, to pick one luminous example, the eight-strong 1988 finals of blessed memory.

True, it doesn’t automatically follow that bigger is better — but neither does the reverse. And it’s also worth noting that the major European leagues which constantly complain about the international football calendar have never had any problem with the money-spinning expansion of the sudden death European Cup into the drawn-out Champions League.

Hell, I’m even happy to welcome Gibraltar to the party, in contrast to German League boss Seifert who sarcastically forecast that the newcomers’ game against his country would be “a firecracker”. The mere presence at the top table of football’s little ‘uns has long been a thorn in the side of the mighty powers but then, if the latter had their way in the past, we would never have experienced the exquisite if ephemeral pleasure of once seeing San Marino go a goal up in 8.33 seconds against England. (As for Irish experiences of San Marino — again, the discreet veil, for obvious reasons, applies).

In Nice, I also very much warmed to Gibraltar manager Allen Bula’s bullish declaration that his team will target a play-off place, even if such a pronouncement might lead some to conclude that the country’s national tongue is, in fact, Gibberish. But that would be rude.

In any event, a defined shape has now been put on the challenge facing Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane. First up, the visit of Serbia to Dublin this week will give us another clue as to what the new management might be able to do to breathe freshness into a team gone stale by the end of Giovanni Trapattoni’s reign. Even if, as looks likely, O’Neill ends up having to work with essentially the same group of players as the Italian, qualification for Euro 16 remains a very realistic possibility, though hardly the gimme many were forecasting before the balls came out of the pots on the French Riviera.

And, on the basis that every little helps, I have a modest proposal. Having previously tried to get the World Cup finals expanded to accommodate us after we were done down by the dastardly French, I wonder should the FAI consider lobbying Uefa to launch a preemptive strike, as it were, and have the Germans kicked out of the Euros? Just a thought, like.