SOCCER:FRENCH WINGER Franck Ribery will miss both of next month's World Cup play-off games against Ireland after being advised that he should not return to action before the end of November due to a knee problem.

The 26-year-old Bayern Munich midfielder has been struggling with the injury, which relates to the patellar tendon in his left knee, since the summer. Having missed his club’s pre-season training, he has managed a handful of appearances. But he has suffered a number of recurrences of the problem and was forced to pull out of France’s final two games of the group stages earlier this month.

Only last week Bayern’s Dutch manager, Louis van Gaal, revealed the player’s recovery had been hindered by difficulties caused by his uneven distribution of weight while attempting to train despite the injury.

“The muscles in his injured leg are less well developed than those in the good one,” said the coach. “And that’s not good. It means the physical demands on his body are unbalanced. It’s very hard to work with tendon problems.

“I’ve brought Ribery on as a sub and I’ve started with him, but the injury’s always flared up again afterwards. We’ve agreed he needs to rid himself of the injury completely before we start working with him again.”

The player got a better idea of how long that will take when he visited a specialist, and yesterday he confirmed on French television that his lay-off will continue for at least another five weeks.

The news will come as a considerable blow to French boss Raymond Domenech for whom Ribery, when fit, has been one of the few consistently strong performers.

Thierry Henry has also been laid up of late with a thigh strain picked up during the recent round of international games, but the Barcelona player is expected to be back in action before the games against Ireland on November 14th and 18th.

Meanwhile, the French Football Federation will put tickets on sale for the second leg of the play-off at 11am this morning.

Tickets for the November 18th match at the Stade de France will only be available from a number of authorised agents, including some branches of Carrefour, Fnac and Galerie Lafayette, with prices ranging from €20 to €100.

Demand is expected to be heavy from French supporters and some resale agencies there have already been quoting €200 for the cheapest seats.

But there is considerable anxiety among federation officials that Irish supporters might, as they did five years ago, snap up large numbers of tickets for what are intended to be “home” sections of the stadium in the general sale.

Purchases are to be limited to four per person and the official line is that the identities of those attending the game will be checked against names provided at the time of purchase.

It remains far from clear how many Irish will travel for the game, but FAI chief executive John Delaney said yesterday the hosts have already guaranteed the association here the nearly 8,500 they are obliged to give under the rules of the competition, and talks continue regarding the possibility of additional allocations.

“We’re collating the requests from fans who have sent us emails through the website letting us know how many tickets they need to travel to the away match,” he said.

“We’ll see what the demand is and keep asking for more tickets along the way.

“The Irish fans are very innovative at getting tickets, though, we all know that. They’ll buy them off the French directly and do all the wonderful things they have done in the past. We want to get as many Irish fans as we can into the ground.”

Around 25,000 Irish attended the drawn game between the countries in Paris in October 2004, but that was played on a Saturday with the date scheduled for almost a year.

Early indications are the number of travelling supporters will fall well short of that number this time, with seats, albeit expensive ones, still available on flights with all of the major airlines on the main dates in question, and at least one travel agent here has already scrapped a planned package trip on the basis of poor take up.

Asked about what numbers he expects to be in St Denis on the night, Delaney said it is a little too early to gauge.

“It’s hard to judge. We’ll base that on the feedback we get over the next week or so. The last time was a Saturday and in better economic times, but I’ll be amazed if we don’t at least meet the allocation we have already, I’d be surprised.

“From the interest to date that we’ve had I can see that being full. If there are increased orders from Irish fans we’ll be making more representations to the French about more tickets.

“If we do need extra tickets, and I imagine we will need some, we would be hopeful that they will help us and, if we have to, we will be asking right up to kick-off for them, I can tell you that.”