International news: The Football Association of Ireland is to perform soccer's equivalent of bringing the mountain to Muhammed next May when an Irish team, officially billed as a Brian Kerr XI, travels to Glasgow to take on Celtic in a benefit game for the club's long-serving midfielder Jackie McNamara.
Kerr will use the game, scheduled for May 29th next year as preparation for Ireland's World Cup qualifiers against Israel and the Faroe Islands which are scheduled to take place over the following 10 days in Dublin and Torshavn, respectively.
He said yesterday the match would be particularly useful given the English season will have been finished for almost a month by the time Israel visit Lansdowne Road and the prospect of another friendly game being pencilled in during the intervening weeks hasn't been ruled out by the association.
"I'm delighted to be involved in Jackie's testimonial celebrations as he has been a great servant to the game in an era when loyalty to one club is unusual," says Kerr. "As well as strengthening the good relationship, the game itself will be very useful given the English season will have finished some three weeks earlier."
The association also confirmed it is in talks with a number of its foreign counterparts about arranging a game at the end of March. Ireland are due to play in Tel Aviv on the 26th but have no fixture the following Wednesday which is also an international date.
Kerr is likely to prefer to be free to watch one of the group's other games that night. France play in Israel and Switzerland host Cyprus and so a friendly may be set up for March 29th (Tuesday) with the opponents to be confirmed over the coming month or so.
At Merrion Square yesterday, meanwhile, acting chief executive John Delaney said the association will appoint new managers to run the organisation's Grass Roots Unit, its education programmes and player development programme early in the new year. Speaking at a media briefing where senior officials from the association's licensing scheme provided details of the 2005 scheme, Delaney admitted errors were made earlier this year when the new regulations were introduced for the first time.
Along with Ken Robinson and Bob Breen, two of the key officials involved in administering the programme, he insisted a good deal had been learned from the extended difficulties encountered back in January and February of this year and he expressed confidence that things will go more smoothly this time around.
"We did make mistakes but the motivation was always right and the bottom line is that clubs are better now because of this scheme. The goal now is to ensure that they are better again in 12 months because of this year's round of licensing procedures."
As expected the demands on clubs in the area of infrastructure have been staggered and most will now have up to five years to make the ground improvements required to play Premier Division soccer as long as they provide a clear schedule of what is to be done and when.
Those clubs participating in Europe will face a separate assessment process, due to take place in May, when their ability to stage the home legs of their ties at their own grounds will be assessed.
Clubs have until Friday to submit their initial league licence applications while the committee is scheduled to announce its decision on January 17th.
At underage level, two friendly games have been arranged for the under-19s against Italy. The matches will take place in mid-January and Sean McCaffrey's side will then continue its preparations for the next stage of its European Championship qualifying campaign at a four-team tournament in La Manga, Spain, where Norway, Denmark and the Czech Republic will also compete.
