FAI ask for quick decision on play-off

The Football Association of Ireland was in touch with FIFA yesterday when the association took the first opportunity open to it to make the international body aware of the various reservations it has regarding its forthcoming World Cup qualification play-off in Asia.

While the FAI's general secretary, Brendan Menton, said that he was aware of the difficulty of FIFA's position, he insisted that the Irish association wanted an early ruling on the current situation.

"Obviously we won't know who we are going to be playing for a while yet," he said, "but the difficulty of postponing this decision for another three weeks or so is that your options in terms of changes you might want to make to the arrangement are then severely limited.

"In the interests of clarity we feel that it would be much better that some form of decision is taken as soon as possible."

Over the course of a 15-minute telephone conversation with officials of the game's world governing body yesterday, Menton apparently received no firm indication that he would get his wish.

But he said yesterday that he is satisfied that he has made the FAI's case and that FIFA's representatives at this week's UEFA congress in Prague will be fully aware of what the association is looking for.

Menton said that the phone call had been followed up with a letter but that he did not now expect there to be any substantial progress until towards the end of the week.

After the initial contacts between the two bodies, the FAI issued a statement in which it emphasised that both it and FIFA appreciated the fact that the commencement of military action in Afghanistan has "complicated" matters.

So far, however, there is no indication that football will be affected in any way with the remaining Asian qualifiers still scheduled to go ahead and UEFA insisting that this week's Champions League fixtures will be similarly unaffected.

One game that has fallen is the qualifying tie between Israel and Austria that was scheduled for Sunday but postponed in the immediate aftermath of last week's crash of a Russian airliner that was on a journey out of Tel Aviv.

The Israeli football authorities condemned the decision to postpone the game as "disgraceful" and appear to have felt that calls from the Austrians to have the match played at a neutral venue were a little opportunistic - a victory for Israel would have meant that they rather than their visitors would have gone through to next month's play-offs.

UEFA, meanwhile, have insisted that while they continue to monitor the situation they have no plans to interfere with the proposed visit of Chelsea to Israel for a UEFA Cup tie.

And Chelsea insist that they have made no requests regarding the game, although they have already decided not to carry the usual advertisements on their shirts for the club's main sponsors - Emirate Airlines.

Finn Harps striker Kevin McHugh has turned down the chance to join Roddy Collins at Carlisle United.

It is believed the Cumbrian club made the move for the Harps striker after receiving several offers for former Shelbourne striker Richie Foran.

Both Blackburn Rovers and Crystal Palace are believed to be interested in Foran, who has scored four goals in his first seven appearances for the Brunton Park side.

Confirming the inquiry about McHugh, Harps manager Jonathan Speak said: "Carlisle were in touch with me last Thursday, but when I contacted the player he said he wasn't interested so that's end of story as far as I am concerned."