Georgia striker fit to travel home

EURO 2004: Georgia striker Shota Arveladze was released from hospital yesterday after undergoing tests aimed at identifying the cause of his sudden illness in the wake of Wednesday's European Championship qualifying game at Lansdowne Road.

Arveladze was brought to St Vincent's hospital after concern had been raised about his ability to undertake the journey home when he started coughing up blood on the team bus on the way to the airport. It is not clear whether the problem might have been caused by a reaction to some form of medication being taken by the player.

After being assessed in the hospital accident and emergency department, a spokesman said the player was kept in overnight for observation but by yesterday afternoon it was felt he had recovered sufficiently to be released.

A number of the official Georgian delegation, as well as Arveladze's brother, stayed on in order to travel home with the striker although no one from the Georgian Football Federation would comment on the case yesterday.

Meanwhile, FAI chief executive Fran Rooney has made the stamping out of booing of players at international games a priority following the constant booing of Arveladze by a minority of the crowd on Wednesday night.

Arveladze was regularly booed by a small section of the crowd because he plays for Glasgow Rangers and Rooney has reiterated manager Brian Kerr's stance that it is unacceptable.

"We will look at how other associations deal with it, get the players involved and get the media involved. We've got to stamp it out," Rooney said. "The association has already tried things. We have made announcement before which only intensified the booing and last night, Brian Kerr's programme notes asked for no booing."