Foreign affairs minister Dermot Ahern ordered ambassador Joe Lynch to set up the meeting with Fifa, which will involve the body's legal director, Heinz Tennler.

This follows Fifa's decision that footballers playing for Northern Ireland must hold a valid British passport, which they must show to the match commissioner to establish they are qualified to play for the North.

However, the Irish government argues that the decision runs contrary to the Good Friday agreement . . . a UN-registered international agreement . . . which entitles citizens of Northern Ireland to hold either a British or an Irish passport.

Ahern this weekend said it was "clear that the person who drafted the Fifa letter is not very familiar with the situation in the North. In my opinion, Fifa have scored a spectacular own goal by this decision and have placed themselves completely offside with most people on this island".

Ahern said his department had spent the past six weeks seeking a legal opinion from Fifa but the association had been "incapable" of coming up with one. "Maybe on Monday they might come up trumps but I suspect they simply don't have a legal opinion and are frantically searching around for some form of words to justify what they have done."

Warning that if the Fifa decision is allowed to stand it will "undermine football in the North", the minister pointed out that the production of a British passport is not proof that a player is eligible to play for Northern Ireland. "Otherwise, every player who was not picked for England could then theoretically put themselves forward for the North . . . hardly an outcome that any selfrespecting Northern football fan would want, " he said.

"Northern Ireland is in a unique position. The society is divided down the middle with regard to nationality and allegiance. The two governments and the political parties in Northern Ireland tried in the Good Friday agreement to lessen these divisions by allowing individuals to decide themselves on whether they are Irish, British or both.

That is why post offices in the North help to process both Irish and British passports. Therefore it would seem that Fifa is now refusing to accept the terms of an international agreement, registered at the UN."

Given that there is no Northern Ireland passport, and that production of either an Irish or British passport does not in itself prove eligibility, Ahern said Fifa should "ask the Irish Football Association [the governing body of football in the North] to design a process of authenticating individual players which can be provided to the commissioner at matches. The players can then travel to games on whatever passport they wish.

I believe this would be the best way out of this mess created by FIFA".