2008 finals’ bid not reliant on Croke Park being available

UEFA officials were yesterday told that the Irish bid for the European Championship finals of 2008 was not contingent upon Croke Park being made available by the GAA.

European football officials were given a written guarantee, on behalf of the Government/FAI liaison, that two stadiums of the required standard would be in place to enable Ireland host one of the four groups of four teams that comprises the final tournament of UEFA even if Croke Park was not involved.

This emerged in the course of discussions in Geneva last evening after Scotland and Ireland had made their final presentation to those officials charged with deciding between the seven applicants for the 2008 championships.

The members of the Scottish/Irish delegate were notably up-beat after making their 15-minute presentation to a group that consisted of the 14 members of the UEFA Executive Committee who will make the final decision and the members of UEFA's National Teams Committee.

The National Teams Committee is the body charged with running the actual final tournament.

Their members visited Dublin and Scotland in September when they inspected facilities or, in Ireland's case, the sites of planned facilities. They will make recommendations to the Executive prior to today's vote. "We are feeling very good," said Mr David Taylor, chairman of the Bid Committee, who was the one charged with making the presentation.

"We gave a very strong presentation of a very strong bid and we believe we are in there with a real chance."

"Our bid will be assessed under four headings level of government support, technical, social and economic considerations and I would be extremely optimistic that we will do very well," said Milo Corcoran, president of the FAI.

An important player as far as Ireland was concerned was Des Casey, who did not attend the post-presentation press conferences but who did attend when the presentation was made to UEFA.

Mr Casey recently retired from football and from his position as vice president of UEFA and his influence was deemed critical to the Scottish/Irish bid.

Mr Casey commented after the presentation: "The presentation was excellent. UEFA officers complimented the team on the professionalism of the operation and we can only hope we have swung the three or four people who have been non-committal up until now. Success or failure will depend on how they react to the presentations. We have done the business." The up-beat mood of the joint delegation AFTER the presentation seemed somehow incongruous given that the Irish delegates, effectively representing the FAI and the Government, were not in a position to identify one stadium of the required standard that is available at this point. Scotland already have four in place with a guarantee of two from three others in the course of development.