SOCCER NEWS:FAI CHIEF executive John Delaney has denied suggestions that fewer than 500 of the 10,000 premium seats being marketed by ISG for the new Lansdowne Road stadium have been sold.

Delaney had been quoted in an interview with a national newspaper over the weekend claiming that the number of sales was into "four figures", and at a function yesterday to announce a renewal of Lucozade Sport's sponsorship deal with the association and League of Ireland he stuck to the figure, despite a number of people close to the organisation stating the real figure is less than half that, at around the 400 mark.

"I can only deal in what I see every week," he said when the lower figure was put to him. "I get a daily report and weekly report on the sales, and I can tell you that the figures last Friday came to four figures. Average purchase is between three and four, some people have bought 10 and some have bought two. I'm not going to say how many seats we have sold."

His comments come amid continuing doubts that ISG can meet the ambitious targets set for sales of tickets that cost up to €32,000 each at a time when the country has been hit by a serious economic downturn.

Delaney, though, maintains that he is pleased with the way things are going.

"If we sell 60 per cent of the premium seats and boxes, that's the business model that will allow us to get through very, very comfortably. We're into four figures already, which is good. We have to sell 500 a month to see the stadium sold out in total so we are ahead of where we wanted to be at this stage."

He conceded the economic climate did pose some problems, but insisted that he sees the prospects for sales between now and autumn 2010 when the stadium is due to open as being very bright.

"We've had some good purchases from grass-roots football, we've also had some block bookers moving up to 10-year seats and good renewals too," he said. "There's no point going to a major financial institution who will buy six or eight when you know next year they'll buy 20. They've told us next year they're going to buy more. This year they've told us that it's a tough end of year.

"Next year is when budgets are renewed. We've another year and a half for them to purchase and they will, they'd told us they will. This is just not the time to buy, and that's fair."

Others have expressed the opinion the scheme is simply overly ambitious given one previous attempt to market 10-year tickets, well before the current redevelopment project, found fewer than 1,000 takers, and a similar attempt to generate advance income from the corporate market for the proposed Eircom Park stadium fell well short of expectations.

In the latter case, indeed, upbeat figures released to the media were eventually shown to significantly exceed confirmed sales.

Delaney, meanwhile, has confirmed that Ireland's first opponents at the new ground have already been booked, and suggested England might visit the ground soon afterwards.

"We have somebody lined up for August 18th, 2010, and will announce that in the first part of next year," said Delaney.

"(As for England) they do owe us a game. Bringing them to the old Lansdowne Road would have been difficult, and Croke Park wouldn't really have been possible unless we drew them in a championship game.

"There was a time when we drew England all the time, back to the late '80s and '90s, but we haven't come across them too much in the last couple of years.

"Murphy's Law is that if you do organise for them to come to Ireland you'll draw them in a competitive game, but the English are appointing a chief executive and we'll have a discussion about it at some stage. I would love at some stage to have England, but we'll see."

In relation to the League of Ireland, Delaney confirmed that in addition to the extended support of Lucozade confirmed yesterday, a number of other sponsorship announcements are in the pipeline. However, there will be no title sponsor in place for next season.

He subsequently repeated the claim that eight of the 22 clubs will make a profit this year, but conceded the point made privately by a number of clubs: that the association includes among the clubs described as profitable even those that make substantial trading losses which are then covered by owners or other benefactors. "If somebody wants to put their own money without any recourse then that's something that they're entitled to do," he said.