Steve Staunton's advisor, Bobby Robson, will miss next week's trip to Stuttgart for the opening game of Ireland's European Championship campaign after tests revealed that he has a brain tumour and requires surgery. The 73-year-old, who has previously battled cancer on more than one occasion, will have an operation to remove it on Wednesday.
"The tumour is in my brain, which sounds bad," he said in his Sunday newspaper column, "but it is in a position where it can be removed relatively easily and it's extremely small - the size of a grape - which indicates they have caught it early. As surgeons tell me the rest of my body is clean, I should be able to make a full recovery." It is the second time that the former England manager has suffered a setback to his health since taking on his role with the FAI at the start of the year and there is bound to be some concern as to whether he will be able to continue in the job.
Previously, a tumour was spotted on his lung when he had an X-ray after he had a skiing accident. On that occasion he bounced back quickly after receiving treatment.
"It's unfortunate that Sir Bobby won't make it to Germany ", said a spokesman for the FAI yesterday. "Our next match is on October 7th away to Cyprus and obviously the situation will be clearer following Bobby's surgery, which we all hope will be a complete success."
Staunton will name the squad of players he intends to take to Germany in Dublin this morning. The Ireland manager was boosted over the weekend as a string of experienced players who missed last week's defeat by the Netherlands came through club games without any apparent problems.
Shay Given, Steve Carr and Damien Duff all played 90 minutes for Newcastle United who beat Wigan Athletic 2-1, while Robbie Keane came on after an hour of Tottenham's defeat at Bolton Wanderers. Richard Dunne also started for Manchester City while Stephen Ireland came on as a 72nd minute substitute in yesterday's game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. All six are likely to be included in Staunton's travelling party.
Ian Harte, however, has learned that he requires surgery to sort out the knee injury that sidelined him last week. The procedure is likely to keep him out of the game for six weeks and so he is also now a major doubt for the Cyprus game, too.
Don Givens, meanwhile, has called 16-year-old Terry Dixon into his squad for the Irish under-21s' European Championship qualifier against Belgium at Terryland Park on Friday week. After beating Greece 2-0 last week, the team know that a win over Belgium will guarantee them a place in the final play-off round for a place in next summer's finals.
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND UNDER-21 SQUAD: Doyle (Birmingham City), Quigley (UCD); Foley (Luton Town), McShane (West Brom), Bruce (Ipswich Town), Painter (Birmingham City), O'Dea (Glasgow Celtic); Whelan (Sheffield Wed), Flood (Cardiff City), Keegan (Drogheda Utd), Timlin (Fulham), Gibson (Manchester Utd), Deery (Derry City), O'Donovan (Cork City); Tabb (Coventry City), Keogh (Scunthorpe Utd), Ward (Bohemians), Dixon (Tottenham).
