SOCCER:  The Irish contingent last night remained confident of staging a portion of one of the world's biggest international sporting events as officials of the FAI, SFA and joint Euro 2008 bid team completed their preparations for this afternoon's final sales pitch.

Each of the seven campaigns will have around half an hour at UEFA's headquarters at Nyon, just outside Geneva, to make their final case to the organisation's National Teams Committee after which the organisation's 14-man executive committee, only eight of whom will initially be able to vote due to the national affiliations of the others, will sit down tomorrow morning to narrow the field to either two or three before, finally, deciding on a winner.

The Swiss and Austrians remain the favourites by virtue of their impressive technical bid and geographical location with the Nordic campaign (involving Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland) considered to be running close behind in second place despite their somewhat weaker bid but because, in no small part, of their flawless political connections.

The Irish and Scots, though, still appear to be very much in with a shout. However, their chances of success, as they have for some time, appear to depend almost entirely on their ability to eclipse their Nordic rivals and go into a head to head with the central Europeans.

"It's very hard to call," said former executive committee member Des Casey last night after spending the day canvassing in Lausanne and Nyon on behalf of the campaign.

"Everybody is playing their cards very close to their chest and you have to take into account that the president (of UEFA, Lennart Johansson) is a Scandinavian, so nobody wants to put their neck on the line.

"There's no doubt, though, that our best chance of success lies with the eight members putting us straight into a head to head with the Swiss and Austrians. It really could go any way for us but if that happens I'd be hopeful."

The FAI's Brendan Menton, who spent the day in Nyon preparing for the final presentation, went slightly further, claiming that if the race did come down to a straight run off with the Austrians and Swiss then "we would have a great chance".

The general expectation here remains that the Austrians and Swiss can count on roughly four votes, essentially a Michel Platini- led group that is supportive of FIFA's Sepp Blatter, initially and that Russia's Viacheslav Koloskov may also lend his weight to their cause, if and when his nation's own campaign makes its exit from the process.

Ireland and Scotland can perhaps count on two votes and will hope the three Scandinavians, who would enter the voting if the Nordic bid falls, would add to that number. If that happens and the situation does boil down to a head to head then both campaigns could have five votes apiece and, with the Swiss executive member still being unable to take part, the destination of the championship would come down to just three ballot papers.

Members of the Irish delegation insist, however, it is particularly hard to call the way things are going.

They are both reluctant to put a firm number on their own expectations and to speculate on what the various other camps might have. They continue to believe, however, that the favourites are overestimating their hand and claim that one of those widely perceived to be committed to the Swiss/Austrian bid strongly asserted yesterday he is not.

With English FIFA vice-president David Will and Scotland's Ernie Walker - chair of UEFA's stadium and security committee until he stood aside for the duration of this bidding process - both working hard with Casey behind the scenes yesterday, the campaign is not without some political influence and that, along with the judgment of the technical assessment panel that their bid is on a par with the Austria and Swiss one, and that those two are ahead of the rest, should be enough to protect them against early elimination.

Indeed the Irish and Scots are the only one of the three favourites to appear entirely at ease with all of the requirements of the bid guidelines.

Specifically, the Nordic proposal envisages staging the opening game in Copenhagen where the ground's capacity falls almost 10,000 short of the required 50,000 for one of the tournament showpieces.

The Russians, Hungarians, Croatians and Bosnians, Greeks and Turks are likely, on the other hand, to be removed from the equation with varying degrees of swiftness. Even assuming there are no shocks from the outsiders, however, and taking into account their main rivals are either struggling or failing to be "completely compliant" with the regulations there is considerable concern within the Irish and Scottish camp that the Nordics, who obviously carry quite a bit of political influence themselves, could yet squeeze into a short-list of two themselves.

If that happens the continuing inability of their own people to vote may hand the tournament to the favourites but that, of course, will be of little consolation in Dublin and Glasgow.

Johansson will certainly have an influence but, says Ireland and Scotland's campaign director, Simon Lyons, it shouldn't be presumed that his support, or any political influence, will prove decisive.

"After all," he points out, "there were a lot of people who said Sepp Blatter wanted the next World Cup to be in South Africa - it's going to be in Germany."