FIFA, the world's governing body, have re-affirmed their opposition to the proposal for Wimbledon to relocate to Dublin in the form of a written response to Jonathan Irwin, chief executive of the Dublin International Sports Council.

The content of the letter was released by the FAI yesterday. In acknowledging DISC's letter of September 19th, FIFA's general secretary Sepp Blatter wrote: "Although we appreciate the weight of your arguments in favour of re locating Wimbledon FC to Dublin, we are afraid that the FIFA Executive Committee has repeatedly seen fit to reject all such requests in the past.

"However, as no formal request has been submitted by either of the two national associations involved, the FIFA Executive Committee has of course not deliberated on this specific case."

Speaking yesterday, Irwin said that FIFA's stance was indicative of the negativity toward the relocation proposal and maintained that the proposal was a sound one which had gone from "a 200 to 1 long shot to 5 to 4 on."