Northern Ireland fans will be asked to give bigotry the red card following the sectarian abuse directed at Neil Lennon by a section of the Windsor Park crowd.

The Irish Football Association will be distributing 8,000 red cards with the message "give bigotry the red card" at Northern Ireland's next home match against the Czech Republic on Saturday week.

The cards were suggested by a Northern Ireland fan, and the IFA hope the initiative will show the likes of Lennon that supporters are totally behind them.

Michael Boyd, the IFA's community relations officer, said: "On the day of the match we will have `give bigotry the red card' flashing on the scoreboard and we hope that the supporters will hold their red cards up to show they are 100 per cent behind all the Northern Ireland players."

This week the IFA also announced a new code of conduct to eliminate the kind of abuse hurled at Lennon during last month's game against Norway.

The 1991 Football Offences Act does not apply to Northern Ireland, and so the IFA have drawn up their own policy for the behaviour of fans in conjunction with the police and the Stormont Assembly.

Meanwhile, English FA Cup hero Roy Essandoh has decided to stay with Wycombe until the end of the season and will be available to face Liverpool in the semi-final on April 8th at Villa Park.

FIFA yesterday played down reports that Africa is guaranteed the 2010 World Cup. At a meeting of the executive committee in Zurich, Switzerland, the governing body said while they were in favour of rotating the tournament among the six confederations, they insisted there was no definite start date for the plans.