Sir, - Once again we witness FIFA's diminishing role as a "world body" for soccer as its brief today seems to be to keep its vast commercial interests sweet while riding roughshod over the very members that gave rise to the organisation in the first place. It appears that the only two reasons that the FAI was unable to secure the release from club duties of the Irish players for next Wednesday's game was that the team is not sponsored by Nike and it is not participating in a friendly match against Brazil being beamed live to the US. - Is mise,
Robert Browne,
Avenue Mozart,
Paris.