Kerr hoping for favourable UEFA ruling

Republic of Ireland manager Brian Kerr is hoping that any punishment UEFA hand out to Georgia following Saturday's crowd trouble…

Republic of Ireland manager Brian Kerr is hoping that any punishment UEFA hand out to Georgia following Saturday's crowd trouble will not involve them having to play their remaining Euro 2004 qualifiers at a neutral venue or behind closed doors.

Kerr fears that Ireland's main Group 10 rivals Russia and Switzerland may have their games against Georgia played in an empty stadium.

Ireland's players were pelted with missiles including a pen knife, ball bearings and bottles during their 2-1 victory in the Lokomotiv Stadium in Tbilisi.

UEFA have launched an investigation and may consider closing the Lokomotiv Tbilisi stadium altogether or making Georgia play behind closed doors in their remaining home games against Switzerland, Russia and Albania.

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Russia have already applied to UEFA to have their away clash with Georgia staged at a neutral venue - a request the Football Association of Ireland hope will be rejected by Europe's governing body.

"We're out of Tbilisi now but I wouldn't mind if UEFA left it until the other teams played here and sampled a bit of the atmosphere for themselves," said Kerr, as he landed in Tirana to began preparations for Wednesday's match against Albania.

"It is right that UEFA should have standards about the behaviour of people but I would wonder if there is consistency about those standards.

"We were fined last year when a couple of seven-year-olds ran on to the pitch in Cork to celebrate an under-19 win over Holland. They were about as dangerous as my granny running onto the pitch and she's been dead for over 50 years.

"That was silly stuff compared to what happened the other night but still we were fined for it. I don't think it is right that teams should have to deal with knives and stuff thrown on to the pitch. That needs to be dealt with.

Ireland's win on Saturday night, combined with Russia's surprise 3-1 defeat in Albania, has opened up Group 10 and given Kerr hope that qualification for next year's finals in Portugal - possibly via the play-offs - is not an unrealistic target.

"When I was first asked about the group before we left home, I said that we would need an unusual set of results to come around if we didn't get at least four points from this trip," he said.

"Some of those results have started to come up. I don't think that people expected Switzerland to draw in Tirana and win in Dublin while you couldn't have seen Russia beating Albania 4-1 at home then losing 3-1 away.

"Georgia are well capable of getting a reasonable number of points and I can't see them losing all three of their remaining home games so maybe the points total needed at the end to get into second position will not be as high as we thought might be necessary.

"That said, we have to get points. We are still second last in the group with only three points and that has to change."

PA