FAI in Moscow to agree fixtures

2012 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP:A THREE-MAN FAI delegation led by chief executive John Delaney left for Moscow yesterday ahead of this morning's meeting to hammer out the fixture list for the Republic of Ireland's group in the forthcoming European Championships campaign.

Representatives of the six nations set to compete in Group B are due to attend the meeting where the Russian hosts, as top seeds, will look to set the agenda.

Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni said last month his preference is to kick off the campaign with a couple of away games, but he has expressed some pessimism that any final agreement will be reached today, with the Italian suggesting Uefa may have to decide the schedule of games, as they are required to if talks break down.

Delaney has also hinted the meeting might be difficult. He observed last week that, while it is usual ahead of such a meeting for some groundwork to have been done in terms of the less controversial dates and games, little or nothing had been agreed in advance of this morning’s formal negotiations.

The FAI chief has, however, expressed a preference for staging a couple of games before the end of October, suggesting that the pair’s ideal line-up for the tail-end of this year would be two away games on September 3rd and 7th followed by two home games in Dublin on October 8th and 12th.

There is little enough room for manoeuvre as the six associations sit down to hammer out a deal with each organisations needing to schedule 10 games in 12 dates allocated for competitive matches between this September and October 2011.

Of the five countries Ireland have been drawn with – Russia, Slovakia, the Federal Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Armenia and Andorra – only the Slovaks will be in South Africa this summer at the World Cup finals and Trapattoni has confirmed he will attend the tournament in order to watch his side’s rivals.