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An audience full of middle-aged and elderly men almost certainly preoccupied with what’s for lunch? Check. Constant reminders that football unites the world? Check. A charming hostess and former Miss Switzerland, Melanie Winiger? Check. Numerous ornate plinths bearing see-through bowls, a trophy or a football. Check. More montages from World Cups passim than were strictly necessary? Check. A dizzying array of acrylic multi-coloured draw balls? Check. “Fifa legends” Christian Karembeu, Marco Materazzi and Martin Dahlin? Checkity-check-check. A shiny floor? Check. Fifa competition manager Manolo Zubiria explaining protocol? Check. Self-important claptrap from an increasingly obsequious and craven “haunted cue-ball” Fifa president? Check.
Such were the mandatory ingredients for the usual over-stuffed and undercooked helping of pure, concentrated Fifa that eventually revealed – at least for the parochial purposes of Football Daily – that Wales will be at home to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Ireland will be away to Italy, and the Republic of Ireland will face Czech Republic in Prague as they attempt to negotiate the next steps of their meandering “paths” to next summer’s Geopolitics World Cup. Working on the almost certainly misguided assumption that all three nations win, Wales will then host Northern Ireland in a mouthwatering winner-takes-all eliminator, while O’Ireland will welcome Denmark or North Macedonia to Dublin to see who gets to compete in North America. In Europe’s other two obstacle-strewn pathways, Ukraine will entertain Graham Potter’s Sweden (presumably on neutral ground) with the winners hosting Poland or Albania. Slovakia or Kosovo will stage the remaining final against Romania or global football’s not so much dark, as increasingly-dappled grey horses Turkey.
