Soccer: Republic check out Andorra allegations

The Republic of Ireland have passed on to Fifa an anonymous tip that up to six members of the Andorra squad they are due to face in a World Cup qualifier are ineligible.

The allegation is that midfielder Marc Bernaus has already played for Spain at competitive junior level, while five other unnamed players do not have Andorran passports.

Bernard O'Byrne, chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland, said: "This information has been sent to us anonymously by fax to Dublin and my initial suspicion is that it is a complete red herring."

He added: "I would be absolutely amazed if it were true.

"But we feel we are obliged to pass it on to the Fifa commissioner and let him deal with it before the game because we certainly do not want to become embroiled in anything afterwards.

"It is a very awkward situation for us."

Checks have revealed that a Marc Bernaus did play for Spain against Ireland in 1997 in the World Under-20 Championships in Malaysia.

"It does seem very strange," O'Byrne added.

"Why is somebody targetting us with this allegation now when some of these players have already played in earlier qualifiers for Andorra, including the game against Holland on Saturday night."

The FAI have also been told by the mystery source that another Andorra midfielder, Justo Ruiz, only has a Spanish passport and has played for that country.

If Andorra, which has only been an independent sovereign state since 1993, have been employing 'ringers' in their national side it has yet to do them much good.

They lost all 10 games in trying to qualify for the finals of Euro 2000 and in the current World Cup campaign have been beaten in all six games so far.