Duff didn’t want to be made a special case

For an international retiree, it was quite an eventful day yesterday as Damien Duff at first lost and then gained back a cap to retain his status as an Irish centurion.

The Fulham man was reportedly happy to have the situation resolved but only once it was made clear to him that the FAI’s decision also applied to his team-mates and that a special exemption was not being made for him.

The winger’s total of 100 caps — the last of which came in the European Championship game against Italy in Poznan — had appeared under threat after it emerged that, owing to an administrative error by the Hungarian FA, the Euros warm-up friendly between Ireland and Hungary in Budapest on June 4 was not recognised by Fifa as an official ‘A’-match.

That would have reduced Duff’s caps total to 99 as well as also reducing by one the number of caps gained by the other players who featured in the game in the Ferenc Puskas Stadium, among them Duff’s fellow centurions Robbie Keane and Shay Given.

However, following contact with both Fifa and the Hungarian FAyesterday, the FAI were able to confirm that, since the awarding of caps is at the discretion of each national association, those handed out for the match in Budapest will stand. In a statement, the FAI said it had “decided that the players who participated in the fixture deserve caps, particularly Damien Duff for the service that he gave to his country. Consequently, the Association has informed Damien that it will recognise his status as having earned 100 caps for Ireland.”

The initial problem arose because one of the Danish team of officials for the game in Budapest — assistantreferee David Vang Andersen — was not on the current list of Fifa referees and, for that reason, the worldgoverning body are not recognising the fixture for their international ranking coefficient.

As hosts, the Hungarian FA were responsible for all aspects of the fixture and the association is now havingdiscussions with Fifa in a bid to have the fixture officially recognised. But while it’s unlikely that they will succeed in that endeavour, they have also indicated that — like the FAI — it is still their intention to record the fixture as an international match for the purposes of caps.

The FAI also pointed out yesterday that there are numerous precedents for national associations using theirdiscretion to either award or withhold international caps. For example, the FAI awarded caps for the abandoned friendly against England at Lansdowne Road in 1995 whereas the English FA did not. By contrast, English players who participated in the 1963 England against the Rest Of The World match were recognised by the FA with caps. Similarly, players who participated in matches played by Ireland against Italy B and West German B teams weregiven caps, even though the matches would not have been recognised by Fifa as full ‘A’ internationals.