FAI 'delighted' to stage top European final

SOCCER EUROPA LEAGUE FINAL 2011: FAI CHIEF executive John Delaney will head for Uefa's headquarters in Nyon over the next week or so to sort out formally the detail of the association's successful bid to stage the final of the Uefa Cup, or Uefa Europa League as it will be known by then, in Dublin in 2011.

Delaney will be accompanied on the trip to Switzerland by a number of those who were centrally involved in the campaign to land the match, including the association’s long time adviser, Declan Conroy, who is now expected to oversee the advance organisation of a game which is provisionally pencilled in for Saturday, May 21st.

After two years of lobbying, Lansdowne Road had been widely expected to be awarded the match by yesterday’s meeting of Uefa’s 14-man executive committee since last week, when it became apparent Wembley would win the vote for the 2011 Champions League final ahead of the Allianz Arena in Munich.

That news, also confirmed yesterday, killed off any prospect that the Emirates stadium in London, which had been seen as Lansdowne Road’s main rival, would get the Europa final and left Dublin in a straight duel with Bucharest for the match.

In the end Uefa decided to hand the Irish capital its first major international final a year ahead of its Romanian rival, and adopted the same approach in respect of the Champions League with Munich getting the 2012 decider.

The decision was conveyed to Delaney in a phone call from Uefa president Michel Platini some three years on from when the two attended an All-Ireland hurling final at Croke Park and the idea of a bid was first raised.

“I raised the possibility of a bid,” recalls Delaney, “and he reacted very positively to it, he said he’d love to see it happen, and not long after that he became Uefa president so we took it from there.”

Predictably, the FAI chief was delighted with yesterday’s conclusion to the story, hailing it as a tremendous success not only for the association but also for the many companies and organisation’s that had supported the bid, from Dublin Bus to the city’s hotels, the airport authority, Dublin City Council and the Government itself.

“It’s fantastic news,” he said. “This is one of the greatest things that the association has ever achieved off the football pitch. There will be huge excitement about the match over the next couple of years, everybody will be talking about it and the occasion itself will be great for Dublin. Forty million people watched last year’s final and it should be worth somewhere between €30 million and €100 million to the city.”

The entire supporting cast will be very much involved again now as delivering on the promises made to the various Uefa delegations who visited Dublin becomes the priority.

Commitments were made not only in relation to the stadium itself but also as regards the provision of public transport, accommodation and fans’ zones. Work to ensure everything goes smoothly will get under way almost immediately.

The decision on where the 2011 finals would be staged had been postponed early last year, primarily because Uefa wanted to allow time for a resolution of some tax issues relating to the earnings of foreign based players playing games on British soil, but also, it emerged, because of some discomfort with the relatively short space of time between the scheduled opening date for the redeveloped Lansdowne Road and the proposed staging of one of its showpiece events at the stadium.

Over the past few months, Delaney says, however, the organisation’s leadership was won over with assurances that building work at the ground was coming along well and that a string of major events being scheduled for the venue’s first year of operation would provide ample opportunity for any teething problems to be sorted out.

“The stadium is on schedule and on budget, so we were able to point out to Uefa that it will be handed over to the IRFU and ourselves in April 2010 and that in the 13 months between that and this game, there will be our opening game (believed to be against Argentina), a number of European qualifiers, a four nations tournament and six national rugby matches. So we’re happy that they were persuaded in the end that we will be ready.

“Clearly, we’re delighted that we convinced them that we can do this. What we have to do now is go out and actually do it well and that’s what we’ll be working very hard to achieve from this point on. After that, I’d like to see us go on to bid for other events, I’d love to see the European under-21 championships, which is a huge event these days, Uefa’s second biggest tournament, being staged here.

“That’s for another day, though. First we have to make sure that the 2011 final is a major success.”

This year’s Uefa Cup final will be held in Istanbul in May and next year’s will be in Hamburg, Germany.

The Champions League final this year is due to staged at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, while Madrid’s Bernabeu will host the 2010 edition.