Capello keen on England v Scotland clash

England manager Fabio Capello is keen on a friendly against Scotland but has ruled it out until at least 2010.

Capello held a fixtures meeting with Football Association officials last week to draw up his plans for next year – crucial for England in their qualification campaign for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa – and a Scotland game was not on the agenda.

The Italian coach had been prepared to play a friendly at Wembley next month but that fell through after his Scotland counterpart George Burley decided it was not the right time.

There is still an appetite for the game to take place however in the future, and Scottish FA chief executive Gordon Smith said a friendly is still “definitely back on”.

FA director of communications Adrian Bevington told PA Sport: “I don’t envisage us playing Scotland over the next year but as Gordon Smith has said there is certainly a desire on our part to find a suitable date to arrange a fixture with Scotland in the future.

“However we won’t be in a position to do so for quite some time.

“We were of course ready to host Scotland next month following previous positive conversations but unfortunately Scotland were unable to take up that fixture.

“We fully appreciate the level of interest that an England-Scotland fixture would generate and of course it’s something we will be discussing further with Gordon Smith and the Scottish FA.”

Scotland and England have not played each other since their Euro 2000 play-off in 1999, but Smith has held fresh talks with FA counterpart Brian Barwick.

Smith told The Sun: “I’ve had discussions with Brian Barwick about resurrecting the Scotland v England games and it’s definitely back on.

“It might be 2010 before we get a game. The idea would be to establish some sort of relationship for one-off games or even have them bi-annually.”