So, for a while there during the week the Republic of Ireland were the big bad boys of Europe and were even being threatened with, at best, the loss of three points, at worst, expulsion from the European Championship qualifiers. Why? Because they refused to adopt an "ah sure, life goes on - and sure anyway, what the hell has football got to do with ethnic cleansing" approach to their match against Yugoslavia?

God help us all. You have to hand it to UEFA, they're a rare bunch.

If the whole affair wasn't so damned bewildering UEFA's apparent reluctance to mix sport with `politics' during the week would be amusing, in light of the fact that they, and their big brothers in FIFA, are probably two of the most politicised sporting bodies in existence. And it's not evidence of an Irish persecution complex to suggest that their response to a request for a postponement of the game, out of a simple sense of human decency, would have been a whole lot more sympathetic if it had come from Germany, France, Italy or England. That's just a fact.

(Let's be honest, ourselves, Andorra, Liechtenstein and the Faroe Islands don't carry quite as much clout (financial, in particular) in UEFA circles. Now, there's a shock).

Truth is I didn't know where I stood on the issue the past couple of weeks because I was swayed to and fro by sincere arguments from both camps, those in favour of calling off the game and those against. (The thoughts of those who labelled opponents of the game going ahead "bleeding heart liberals" didn't interest me - they just need psychiatric help. Urgently).

Does a national team represent its people or the regime that runs its country? If the former then, if we have no quarrel with the people of Yugoslavia, just with the Milosevic regime, why should the match not go ahead? And why should we assume that every member of the Yugoslav squad condones the actions of the Milosevic regime, and doesn't find them as morally repugnant as we do? It's just that bit easier for us to speak out than them.

And how can we compete in a sporting arena with, say, China and Indonesia, when crimes perpetrated by their regimes are no less repulsive? All my navel-gazing nearly wore me out. Pull out. No, play the game. Pull out. No, play the game. Pull out . . . But then I just tried to imagine how Kosovar refugees living in, say, the army barracks in Kildare, would have felt if they had turned on a television set this afternoon to see the Republic of Ireland playing 11 men representing the state of Yugoslavia, the same state responsible for the horrors they endured before arriving in this country.

And they might have heard the crowd singing Ole, Ole, Ole and cooing at Savicevic's majestic midfield display, as if all was well with the world. Put that way, stripped of the endless debates, arguments and counter-arguments, and reduced to simple human levels, the leap from my seat on the fence was a doddle.

These people have suffered enough, the last thing they needed was to discover that the country giving them refuge from the nightmare they left behind in their homeland had adopted an "ah sure, life goes on - and isn't it only a game anyway?" attitude to their plight. If, unlikely as it might now seem, UEFA stood by their threats and Mick's Green and White Army lost out on a trip to the Netherlands and Belgium for the next European Championship, so be it. Hard and all as it is to admit it, some things are more important than football. I remember going through the same navel-gazing exercise in the 1980s when South African runner Zola Budd secured herself a British passport and represented Britain in the Olympic Games. She ran under a Union Jack, but it was, of course, a flag of convenience, she was running for South Africa.

I saw her as the devil incarnate, a symbol of the apartheid regime and I hated her with a vengeance. When her collision with Mary Decker in the Olympic final led to the American tumbling off the track I wanted her hung, drawn and quartered, even though, to this day, I still believe it was an accident.

And then I finally heard Budd interviewed and I felt desperately sorry for her. She was just an athlete, blessed with a gift for running (barefoot) faster over her distance than most of her rivals at the time. Personally she was so inoffensive, spoke in apologetic whispers and didn't seem to have any understanding of why a furore surrounded her every appearance on an athletics track. My heart went out to her.

But her personal tragedy was that she was born in the wrong place at the wrong time, a place, like Yugoslavia, where the divide between sport and politics is barely visible to the eye. (Anyone who thinks Balkan leaders don't see football as a handy tool in their attempts to retain the support of their people should read Simon Kuper's Football Against the Enemy).

Just as `normal' life couldn't go on for Zola Budd as men, women and children were gunned down in Uitenhage, Sharpeville and Crossroads by the very people who would have celebrated her triumphs on the track, life (and football) cannot go on while Kosovar refugees sit in Kildare, and elsewhere, unable to return to their homes. When it's safe for them to go home then we can play the game.