Irish frustrated in fixture row

LET’S hope it’s not an omen for the European Championship campaign. Ireland travelled all the way to Moscow yesterday but couldn’t get a result, as the Group B fixture meeting in the Russian capital ended without agreement.

Consequently, it will now be up to UEFA to impose a schedule of matches for the group’s qualifying campaign, with the draw expected to take place next week.

That yesterday’s gathering ended in failure appears not to have been the fault of the Irish, nor indeed of top seeds Russia and Slovakia. Instead, perhaps surprisingly, it emerged that Armenia were the immovable object, their manager Vardan Minasyan reportedly on the phone to their delegation throughout proceedings to repeatedly veto developments.

The Armenia football association (FFA) later issued a statement saying that the Irish and Slovakian delegations had proposed a jointly drafted schedule of fixtures that was approved by all delegations, with the exception of Armenia.

By contrast, the Irish delegation, led by FAI chief executive John Delaney, had already signed up to nine of their 10 fixtures, a list which would have seen them open their campaign at home to Andorra in September, followed by a home date with Russia the following month. Ireland had hoped to finish their campaign in Dublin with a game against Armenia in October 2011 but that was one of the fixtures on which they could not get agreement.

It has also emerged that Andorra are keen to play their home match against Ireland in Andorra rather than in their home from home of Barcelona but Delaney said that this matter would be up for further discussion once UEFA have decided the schedule.

Although the matches have yet to be finalised, the basic shape of the fixture list is already known, with the FIFA/UEFA decision to switch mid-week games to Tuesdays meaning that, for the first time, double-headers will see Ireland playing competitive matches on Friday nights – unless, in this instance, all six nations agree to Saturdays, which seems unlikely.

As things stand, the Group B calendar will see double headers in September and October, one-off Saturday games in March and June and double headers in September and October 2011.

“We’re disappointed but it was almost expected,” said a frustrated John Delaney. “Normally there are some talks beforehand which are productive but not really this time so I always feared that it would be a hard one.

“What is strange is that the top three seeds, ourselves, Russia and Slovakia, had all agreed when to play each other and, normally, when that happens things fall into place.

“It’s easy to say no all the time but sometime you have to say yes. It was frustrating.”