SOCCER:SOURCES CLOSE to the Italian Football Federation confirmed yesterday that Bari will be the venue for the Republic of Ireland's eagerly-anticipated World Cup group eight qualifier with Italy on April 1st.

Bari emerged as something of a surprise choice after Rome, Florence and Naples had all, for different reasons, been rejected.

Italy has no fixed home stadium but has traditionally taken the national team on tour, playing World Cup and European Championship qualifiers in cities such as Milan, Rome, Florence and Genoa whilst friendlies are played in smaller cities such as Cagliari, Lecce, Livorno, Parma and Messina.

The logic underlying the federation's choice is simple enough. Where the game is expected to attract a big attendance, both because of the importance of the match itself and because of the number of visiting fans, then the choice falls on larger stadiums such as the San Siro in Milan or the Olimpico in Rome, both grounds with a 75,000-plus capacity.

Given that up to 15,000 Irish fans may travel for the April 1st game and given that the return of famous prodigal son, Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni, is guaranteed to generate huge interest amongst Italian fans, the federation immediately decided that this game should be played at one of the country's bigger stadiums.

The Olympic Stadium in Rome, a ground where Ireland were famously eliminated from the 1990 World Cup finals in a quarter-final clash by Italy, was the federation's original choice.

However, that plan was abandoned last November following a visit to the Olimpico by Uefa president Michel Platini. Given that this year's Champions League final is due to be played at the Olimpico on May 27th, Platini had attended the AS Roma v Chelsea Champions League game in mid-November in order to check out the stadium's suitability.

Although he gave the Olimpico a full vote of confidence, Platini did express his concern about the possibility of "incidents" at the stadium during the Italy-Republic of Ireland game, just weeks before the Champions League final.

With Rome ruled out, there then ensued a battle between the two team managers with Italy's Marcello Lippi keen to play the game in Florence and Trapattoni instead preferring the San Siro in Milan.

It seems that the Ireland manager was particularly opposed to Florence since, as a former Fiorentina coach, he anticipated a hot reception from the oft-times rowdy Florentine fans.

With Trapattoni opposed to Florence and Lippi not keen to play in Milan, the choice then switched to the San Paolo in Naples.

Federation officials checked out the Neapolitan stadium but ruled against it because of problems related to crowd safety and security. At that point, it was decided to opt for another southern stadium, namely the 58,000-capacity San Nicola in Bari, which was originally built for the Italia '90 World Cup finals.

The choice of Bari was greatly helped by the lobbying of current Italian Football League president Antonio Matarrese, himself a native of Bari.

Although Bari in Puglia, on the heel of the "Italian boot", can be a "warm" venue in every sense of the term, it is not a traditional venue for international games.

Indeed, the San Nicola has hosted Italy on only three occasions. The first game saw the Azeglio Vicini-coached Italy beat Bobby Robson's England side 2-1 to win the third-place play-off match at the 1990 World Cup finals.

Seven years later Italy beat Turkey 5-1 at the San Nicola to win the Mediterranean Games final whilst the azzurri returned to Bari in April 2007, when beating Scotland 2-0 in a Euro 2008 qualifier.

San Nicola is a multi-use all-seater stadium currently used mostly for soccer matches and is the home stadium of AS Bari.