Euro draw to take place on Thursday

THE Republic of Ireland will learn their Euro 2012 schedule on Thursday when UEFA make the draw for the Group B fixtures in Tel Aviv.

Earlier this week, objections from Armenia saw the nations involved fail to reach agreement at a fixtures meeting in Moscow. Now, it will be up to UEFA, meeting in congress in Israel, to decide the order of matches on the road to the European Championship finals in Poland and Ukraine. Ireland are in the same group as Russia, Slovakia, Macedonia, Armenia and Andorra.

FAI chief executive John Delaney and President David Blood will be attending the UEFA congress but will have no input into the lottery by which European football’s governing body will determine the schedule.

England will also discover their fate in the same way, after their fixtures meeting in Zurich with Wales, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Montenegro proved similarly inconclusive.