Decision on stadium now vital

Background: Emmet Malone teases out possible implications of a Celtic liaison

Around 100,000 football supporters could be heading for Dublin in six years' time if Scotland's decision to involve the Republic of Ireland in their bid for the right to stage Euro 2008 proves a winner with European football's governing body.

Senior UEFA officials are now likely to visit Dublin during the summer in order to assess the potential of the joint bid and they will need to be persuaded to take a leap of faith by both the Government and FAI who will, in effect, have very little to show them.

If the panel of assessors can be persuaded, however, that the authorities here have the wherewithal to deliver both Stadium Ireland and a dramatically improved Lansdowne Road then the entire joint bid will probably be in a position to compete fairly well on the technical side with their main rivals.

Whether UEFA can be sold the idea that the Scots and Irish are natural partners in this venture on the basis of their "shared cultural heritage" remains to be seen, though. In effect the bid's underlying theme will be that a decision to award the tournament to the Republic of Ireland and Scotland would guarantee European football a party to remember.

Its most likely rivals when a final decision is taken, probably in December of this year, will be joint bids from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, as well as a joint bid from Austria and Switzerland. Other possible bidders include Russia, Hungary, Croatia/Bosnia-Herzegovina and Turkey/Greece, all of whom have indicated their desire to host the competition.

While the Scottish FA are bitterly disappointed that the money was not made available for them to press ahead without Merrion Square's help, there is a growing acceptance within the European game that only countries boasting the continent's very few elite leagues have the resources to stage alone a competition of the scale of the European Championships.

Still, the fact that none of those countries - the likes of France, England, Germany, Spain and Italy - have expressed an interest in hosting the tournament on this occasion was seen as a golden opportunity for one of the smaller associations to pull off something of a coup. Hence leading officials in Glasgow are reported to feel badly let down by their government, despite the brave faces last night.

One compensating factor could be that UEFA might in future employ a policy of alternating between major footballing powers staging the tournament on their own and smaller nations hosting jointly. With Portugal due to host 2004 by itself, 2008 would be the turn of joint bidders.

A factor readily conceded in Scottish circles is that the greater success currently being enjoyed by the Republic of Ireland senior team adds somewhat to the prestige of the bid.

Still, there is a lot to be done and a good deal of money to be found if this joint bid is to stand a real chance of success. The Scots are well aware of the political difficulties that surround the Stadium Ireland proposal, and must now depend on their partners to provide the required guarantees that the current problems can be overcome.

The next hosts will also prove a hard act to follow for current bidders. Despite its proud history in the game Portugal would not be an obvious candidate for membership of Europe's football elite, but with an economy that is particularly dependent on tourism and an ailing national sport in urgent need of revival, the country won the right to host the 2004 championships with an impressive bid that was heavily backed by the country's national and regional governments.

The Portuguese will use 10 stadiums, of which eight will be heavily-modernised existing structures, one will be completely rebuilt and one constructed from scratch.

Aside from the extensive cost of providing such modern footballing facilities, however, the Portuguese bid committed the country to a series of wide-ranging infrastructure projects including extensive improvements to the national road and rail networks.

With the economy there going through an uncertain period over the past year or so the entire project has become controversial, with opposition leaders calling for the spending commitments to be scaled back or, in some cases, calling for the entire championships to be abandoned.

Supporters of the bid have repeatedly argued, however, that to pull out now would bring almost unprecedented embarrassment on the country.

The hope in Merrion Square will be that if UEFA initially bite at a bid which includes Stadium Ireland as a central element, the same fear here will finally resolve the debate over whether to press ahead with the controversial development.