Ireland and Scotland join Euro forces

Leading football officials from Dublin and Glasgow will meet in Porto this morning in an attempt to hammer out the details of what has finally been confirmed as a joint bid to stage the 2008 European Championships.

The move comes after Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell confirmed in the Scottish Parliament yesterday that public money required for the Scots to press ahead with a solo bid will not now be made available.

FAI general secretary Brendan Menton expressed quiet pleasure with the news that the Irish would now be central to the bid, and said he would know more this morning when he and the rest of the Republic of Ireland delegation meet with their Scottish counterparts in Porto ahead of tomorrow's Euro 2004 draw.

"It's going to take a big commitment, particularly from the Government," he said, "but we have always said that we would be supportive if the Scots decided that they needed us.

"We talked to the department of sport before Christmas, when they assured us that the Government remains enthusiastic about the idea.

"After the Olympics and the World Cup, this is probably the biggest sporting event in the world, and to have the chance of bringing even a quarter of it here is an opportunity that shouldn't be missed.

"Substantial investment in the grounds will be required, but the fact is that those facilities are badly needed anyway, while most of the rest of the things that they (UEFA) look for - roads, hotels and communications infrastructure - are almost all in place already. In many ways we are in a strong position to make this bid."

Menton added that the IRFU have already confirmed their intention to redevelop Lansdowne Road into a 30,000 all-seat stadium once Stadium Ireland is up and running, and both organisations are confident that the required improvements can be made in time for the championships.

"I don't want to be putting words in their mouth, but that is what they've indicated to us," he said, "and the additional space available around Lansdowne Road means that it would be able to host the media and VIP facilities that you need for staging games in a tournament like this."

While bid director Simon Lyons said before Christmas that Croke Park had been mentioned to his team as a possible venue when they spoke to Government officials, Menton remains sceptical, questioning the GAA's willingness to make the ground available and asking: "Would they be able to guarantee its availability for all of the dates required at what is a very busy time of the year for them, and could they get floodlights installed?

" It appears," he concluded, "to make more sense to us that the Government goes ahead with what it said it was going to do and build Stadium Ireland."

In reality, though, the final bid document in May need not necessarily contain precise details of which two stadiums will be used. Rather, the Government will be required to underwrite a guarantee that two suitable grounds will be available in time for the championships.

In effect, that leaves open the possibility that, while Stadium Ireland would be the preferred venue, the Government could, in the event that it is not built, still buy its way out of a corner by persuading the GAA to make Croke Park available.

Lyons, meanwhile, insisted that the two countries had the potential to put together an "excellent" bid by UEFA's deadline for proposals at the end of May. "We've been together as a team now since August and we have a huge amount of the work done on this already.

"There will have to be some further work on gauging the implications of the joint bid, but we can get consultants, probably with strong links to the ones we have been using so far, to look at that straight away and I can't see there being any problems with the deadlines."

In order to meet them, however, the Scots will have to recover quickly from the disappointment of having had their solo bid scuppered by the government there. Ireland's involvement in the bid, after all, has only come about because McConnell and the rest of the government opted to save anything up to €162 million by not building or renovating grounds that would almost certainly be under utilised after the tournament.

While there were reports last night of severe disappointment within the Scottish FA, Lyons insisted he and the rest of the bid team were happy with the way things have turned out.

"This morning we were worried that there might be no bid at all," he said, "so given the various options that the Scottish Executive had before them, we're glad that they've taken this decision to support a joint bid with the Irish."