UEFA Be Joking

The FAI's website reports that John Delaney has come back from a UEFA meeting in Strasbourg with an assurance that the new Lansdowne Road will one day host a Champions' League or UEFA Cup final. Given the still-provisional status of the stadium's development, the tortuous history of failed stadium initiatives involving the FAI, and Delaney's own poor attempts at spin, I might be forgiven for seeing the FAI chief as a Neville Chamberlain-type figure just for now. Already RTÉ are taking the gloss off the whole thing by reporting that only a UEFA Cup final has been promised.

As for now, it is off down to the Parc des Princes tonight to cheer on Derry City against the reviled Paris Saint-Germain. PSG have suspended their most famous, and possibly best player Vikash Dhorasoo, for something amounting to insubordination. They will have to rely upon the efforts of Pauleta, sunshine boy par excellence - as Eamon Dunphy might say - to break down the Candystripes. A score draw will put Derry through. It is not unthinkable.