They haven’t played here since the terrible events of 1995 but the final administrative obstacle to Ireland playing England in Dublin before Euro 2012 has now been removed by UEFA.
The game’s governing body in Europe had a rule preventing countries who had qualified for the championships playing each other 30 days before the tournament kicked off. This prevented the FAI and English FA from organising a game in late May, when both associations wanted to face off.
Now UEFA have relaxed that rule, allowing one friendly to be played and if the previous comments from John Delaney are to be believed, the FAI will now attempt to go ahead with the money-spinning clash as a final Euro 2012 warm-up for both countries.
Speaking last week Delaney said: “Certainly they still want to play us and certainly they want to play us in May, but it requires a relaxation of the rule and various countries, including ourselves, have made representations to Uefa asking: ‘How can you have good competitive friendlies in May if 15 teams are ruled out of the equation?’ We’ll have to wait and see how that goes.”
With that roadblock now lifted talks will begin. Ireland could play England in a massive Euro 2012 quarter-final of course and that may change Fabio Capello’s attitude to the fixture. As we all know though, England never get past quarter-finals so we will beat them of we play them.
The game would be a great boost to the FAI’s coffers even before the Polkraine money rolls in, with the sold-out Aviva crowd for the visit of England bringing in an estimated €3.5milion.
When there is that much money involved, there is now little chance of the game not happening. The only wrinkle is the potential quarter-final, with some suggestions that the friendly may be pushed back to November if Capello is scared of facing Trap. Our Italian will still be around next Novemeber but Capello will be long gone by then.
However, we would rather it was played in the pre-tournament excitement of May, though, as it would be the ideal way to kick-off a summer of football madness here.
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