FAI look to build on Brazilian success

Soccer: In the wake of Wednesday night's sell-out encounter with the Brazilians the FAI look set to chase home games with some of the world's leading football nations in the hope of repeating the success of its current three-match package. Emmet Malone reports

The association will make a combined profit of around €1.5 million on the visits of Brazil, the Czech Republic and Romania to Dublin, around 50 per cent more than might have been expected had the opposition been more in line with the sort that have generally passed through Lansdowne Road in recent seasons.

The world champions are believed to have cost slightly in excess of €500,000 but the investment made in bringing Carlos Alberto Parreira's team to town has, despite some resistance to the idea of grouping the games together, paid off handsomely prompting leading FAI officials to look at ways that similar deals can be struck in the future.

"I think there are probably only half a dozen or so sides that you base this sort of thing around," said the association's treasurer John Delaney yesterday. "Obviously whoever the world champions are at any given time will be attractive and the rest of the names are obvious enough, Argentina, France England, maybe Germany, Italy and one or two others. It involves a considerable investment but I think the success of the Brazil game has certainly persuaded us that this is the way to go forward.

"It's not just the financial aspect of this that has gone well either," he adds. "In football terms the game was a great success and the whole thing has been very good for the FAI brand, it's brought a lot of positive publicity and a feel good factor.

"There was a great atmosphere at Lansdowne as well, it's probably been a while since we've seen anything quite like it for a friendly and it's great for the sponsors to be associated with something like that. Everything about it really points to this being the way to go in future."

Faced by a constant need to bring in cash since the depletion of its reserves during the Eircom Park saga, the association has tended to strike deals with other associations based on teams visiting Ireland for a minimal fee on the basis that there would be a return game at some point in the future.

Many of the games have been of a disappointing quality, attracted mediocre crowds given that most of Lansdowne Road permanent seats are effectively pre-sold for every game to block booking and 10-year ticket holders, and done little enhance the reputation of either the team or the association. The policy has also left the FAI with a growing number of obligations across Europe.

With a friendly against the French ruled out for the next couple of years and a game against England probably looking more attractive when a new and better segregated stadium is in place, the association has a short enough list of big names to work off during the next couple of years but Argentina look to be the main target with the likes of Italy, Germany and Holland also possibilities.

"To his credit I think Fran (Rooney) has been very aggressive about this, he hasn't just sat back and waited to see what comes in, he has got out there knocking on the doors of all the big names looking to see what it will take to get them here."

While none would represent quite the attraction that Brazil did this week they wouldn't command such substantial fees either and similar packages could hold considerable potential for developing the association's revenues at a time when the demands on its resources are growing dramatically but the hopes for growth in Government funding has failed to materialise.

For Brian Kerr the benefits of playing against better and somewhat more motivated opposition were also obvious on Wednesday evening when even a rather relaxed looking Brazil challenged the Irish in ways that very few of last year's opponents could have hoped to.

Several players impressed in the circumstances but Andy O'Brien's performance will have been the one to have given the Ireland manager most to think about afterwards. Having waited two and a half years for his first full 90 minutes of international football, O'Brien justified the quiet confidence he had displayed before the game that he would be up to the challenge. Not everything in the disjointed early stages of the 24-year-old's Irish career has gone so smoothly and the defender would presumably prefer to forget the error that handed Mark Viduka an easy goal during the friendly with Australia.

Wednesday's performance, however, suggests that while he may not quite be in the same league as some of Ireland's great centre backs of the past couple of decades he has the quality and consistency required to displace Gary Breen.

The latter's club form at Sunderland has been strong this season and he is certain to return to the Irish side during the current programme of friendlies but in the longer term he will continue to be hampered by the greatly inferior quality of the opponents he is playing against if Mick McCarthy's side is not promoted while, for all his previous successes in an Ireland jersey, there is the lingering suspicion that Breen is a little more accident prone than his Newcastle- based rival.

Kerr's midfield options, meanwhile, look no more straightforward in the wake of the Brazil game with Jason McAteer performing well enough on his return but doing little to ease his manager's concerns about the right side of midfield by declaring that he is no longer fit enough to play in the position.

With McAteer, Kevin Kilbane and Graham Kavanagh having done well this week and all now apparently amongst the serious contenders for places in central midfield and Liam Miller and Colin Healy both to return from injury, Kerr's options in that department have broadened considerably.

But none of the players currently in the mix could exactly be described as an automatic choice and the lack of a truly authoritative figure in that area of the pitch - Roy Keane's latest ruminations notwithstanding - remains perhaps the team's greatest concern seven months before the World Cup qualifying campaign gets under way.