Football: No way back for banned McAllister

Scotland were last night forced to admit defeat in their attempt to persuade Fifa, the governing body of world football, that Gary McAllister should be allowed to lead them in tomorrow's World Cup qualifying match against Sweden at Ibrox.

Following a day of frenzied fax and phone activity between Glasgow and Zurich, in which the Scots challenged the validity of McAllister's suspension for the game, the national manager, Craig Brown, said: "We made an appeal, or a request for clarification, but the decision was that Gary was ineligible."

The Scotland captain was due to sit out last month's ill-fated Group Four fixture in Estonia after incurring a one-game ban, and did not appear for the three-second farce. When Fifa informed the Scottish FA that the Tallinn game had to be replayed, it also confirmed that McAllister's suspension now applied to the visit of the Swedes.

That seemed to be the end of the matter. But yesterday the SFA's media liaison officer, David Findlay, revealed that its chief executive, Jim Farry, had put "pertinent questions" to Fifa about McAllister's position. These, he added, were "making them think very seriously about the decision".

Sufficiently seriously, it transpired, for Fifa to reconvene their disciplinary committee in emergency session by phone, only for the original ruling to be upheld.

The issue appears unlikely to go away, whatever the result of tomorrow's game. Scotland are understandably keen to hear an explanation as to why Lennart Johansson, a Swede, reportedly chaired the enquiry into the phantom fixture in Tallinn. Johansson is vice president of Fifa as well as president of Uefa, the ruling body for European football, and while the SFA is anxious not to be seen to be questioning his impartiality, it does not appear to have been the most judicious of appointments.

The Scots have also learned that Johansson was interviewed on television at half-time during Sweden's home defeat by Austria, which was played later in the same day as the match in Estonia. He is said to have remarked that Scotland's game would clearly have to be replayed, which could be seen as pre-judging the affair before he could have known all the circumstances.

As the political intrigue rumbled on yesterday, Brown effectively had to prepare two teams. One included McAllister; the other, skippered by Colin Hendry, did not. "We've had to play without Gary four times in the past few years," Brown said. "We won three and drew one. He's a tremendously influential player, but we must condition the fans and the team that it's not a disaster to lose any one individual."

Sweden's manager, Tommy Svensson, earlier voiced the fear that Scotland were turning the fixture into a grudge match. Brown hoped to disabuse him of the notion, recalling fondly the welcome the Scots received in Gothenburg and Norrkoping during Euro 92, and anticipated instead a game of tactical cat and mouse.

In the absence of his principle play-maker, Brown picks from "a clutch of young alternatives".

The game, only the eighth Scotland have played at home in Brown's 28- match reign, is close to a 50,000 sell-out. The Scots would have gone into action as leaders had they been awarded the 3-0 walkover they were led to believe was theirs after Estonia's no-show. Should they win, no Fifa edict can prevent their going top.

SCOTLAND (Probable; 3-5-2): Leighton (Hibernian); Calderwood (Tottenham), Hendry (Blackburn), Boyd (Celtic); Burley (Chelsea), B McKinlay (Blackburn), Lambert (Borussia Dortmund), Collins (Monaco), T McKinlay (Celtic); D Jackson (Hibernian), McCoist (Rangers) or McGinlay (Bolton).

SWEDEN (Probable; 4-4-2): Ravelli (IFK Gothenburg), R Nilsson (Helsingborg), P Andersson (Borussia Monchengladbach), Bjorklund (Rangers), Sundgren (AIK Stockholm); Zetterberg (Anderlecht), Thern (Roma), Schwarz (Fiorentina), Blomqvist (IFK Gothenburg); K Andersson (Bologna), Dahlin (Borussia Monchengladbach).

SCOTLAND v

SWEDEN

(at Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow; tomorrow, 3.0)

Group Four

P W D L F A Pts

Sweden 3 2 0 1 7 3 6

Scotland 2 1 1 0 2 0 4

Austria 2 1 1 0 1 0 4

Belarus 4 1 1 2 3 7 4

Estonia 2 1 0 1 1 1 3

Latvia 3 0 1 2 2 5 1

RESULTS: 1996: 1 June: Sweden 5 (K Andersson pen 20, 62, Dahlin 30, P Andersson 77, H Larsson 87) Belarus 1 (Belkevich 75). 31 Aug: Austria 0 Scotland 0; Belarus 1 (Makovsky 35) Estonia 0. 1 Sept: Latvia 1 (Rimkus 55) Sweden 2 (Dahlin 16, K Andersson 21). 5 Oct: Estonia 1 (Hohlov-Simson 52) Belarus 0; Latvia 0 Scotland 2 (Collins 18, Jackson 77). 9 Oct: Sweden 0 Austria 1 (Herzog 11); Belarus 1 (Makovsky 78) Latvia 1 (Zemlinski 16).

FIXTURES: Today: Austria v Latvia. Tomorrow: Scotland v Sweden. 1997: 29 Mar: Scotland v Estonia. 2 Apr: Scotland v Austria. 30 Apr: Austria v Estonia; Sweden v Scotland; Latvia v Belarus. 18 May: Estonia v Latvia. 8 June: Estonia v Sweden; Latvia v Austria; Belarus v Scotland. 20 Aug: Estonia v Austria; Belarus v Sweden. 6 Sept: Austria v Sweden; Scotland v Belarus; Latvia v Estonia. 10 Sept: Sweden v Latvia; Belarus v Austria. 11 Oct: Austria v Belarus; Scotland v Latvia; Sweden v Estonia. To be arranged: Estonia v Scotland.