GAA Authorities were yesterday unresponsive to a statement by Mick McCarthy that the association should make Croke Park available to the FAI if, as seems likely, the Republic of Ireland reach the play-offs for the World Cup finals.
The second games in the twolegged ties are scheduled for November 15th, the date of the Irish rugby union side's meeting with the All Blacks at Lansdowne Road and the consequences of that for the FAI, if the national team is drawn away in the opening instalment of the tie, will be serious.
With scant regard for history, McCarthy said yesterday that if Lansdowne Road is unavailable for the World Cup fixture, the next obvious venue would be Croke Park. "I understand that they have never been officially asked to make the ground available for soccer, but I'd now like to request the authorities there to consider the possibility of allowing Ireland to play in Croke Park," said McCarthy.
On his return home from the match aginst Lithuania, Bernard O'Byrne, the FAI's chief executive, added: "We, in the FAI, have great respect for the GAA and we certainly wouldn't like to do, or say anything which might embarrass them." O'Byrne clearly believes that the more realistic option, if Ireland are drawn at home in the second leg, would be to request FIFA to repeal the ban on standing spectators at competitive international games and ask for a postponement of 24 or, preferably, 48 hours.
"Logistically, it would be feasible to play the two international games, rugby and soccer, back to back, but we would have a problem in the area of erecting temporary bucket seating," he said.
"But FIFA have made exceptions in the ban on standing spectators in the past and the hope is that they would react favourably if we asked them to suspend the rule on this one occasion.
"If the ban on standing spectators is still in place, we would only be able to accommodate 23,000 at the game and that would have serious implications, not least financial, for us. But we are resolved that in the event of us qualifying for the play-offs, the game will stay in Ireland."
