A few weeks ago, Slovan travelled to Luxembourg to take on FC Differdange 03 in the first round of the Intertoto Cup.

On the field, the team won 2-0. Off it, the fans disgraced themselves from start to finish. They sieg-heiled on the streets and in the bars of the Duchy, and every time Differdange's lone black player touched the ball they launched a chorus of monkey noises. Many of the Slovan Ultras wore Thor Steinar clothing, a label so intrinsically linked with neoNazis that it is banned in Germany, and t-shirts with "88", the far-right code number for Heil Hitler on the front.

Following the Luxembourg debacle, UEFA announced an investigation but, in the meantime, Slovan progressed to meet Rapid Vienna in the next round of Europe's weirdest competition. Their fans travelled to Austria by boat and train and the hooligans among them again performed their full repertoire of offensive behaviour. Apart from trying to smash up the stadium and fighting the local police, there was more sieg-heiling, waving of flags advocating the banning of women from games, and displaying of the fascist perversion of the Celtic Cross (used because the swastika is banned in most respectable countries).

That Slovan are the normal occupants of the Tehelne Pole (which literally means Brick Field) in Bratislava where Steve Staunton's Ireland will continue their qualifying campaign on 8 September perfectly encapsulates how the Slovak game remains convulsed by racism. In a country where incidents of racist violence are consistently on the rise, extreme right-wingers have commandeered football as their platform and used it to give voice to their prejudices. It just so happens the club with the most illustrious history (European Cup Winners' Cup winners in 1969) is at the epicentre of the problem.

Arguably the most embarrassing element of all this is nearly five years have passed since Slovakia was the talk of Europe following a Euro 2004 qualifier against England marred by some disgraceful abuse of Ashley Cole and Emile Heskey. After an evening when even the stretcher-bearers at Tehelne Pole made monkey noises at some of the English players, the then Slovak coach Ladislav Jurkemik worsened matters by refusing to acknowledge anything untoward had gone on.

"It was a shock that it was this bad, " said Heskey immediately afterwards.

"We're in the year 2002 and you would think that everyone's minds have changed by now but it's still the same. It's very sad. To have a whole stadium shouting racial abuse and making monkey gestures was frightening."

UEFA's response to that particular debacle was the usual mix of bureaucratic obfuscation and empty expressions of disgust. Having initially fined the Slovak FA a whopping 60,000 Swiss francs, they later cut the penalty down to 20,000 and forced them to play a qualifier against Liechtenstein behind closed doors.

"There are almost no people of black colour in Slovakia, " said Frantisek Laurinec, president of the Slovak Football Association by way of explanation at the time. "There are three or four black players in our league. It is not usual for people to have contact with black people. But I must add that the whistling and monkey noises we also use in ice hockey in our country, particularly on the power play. We will create a new system of penalties in our first division.

There will be more black players in the future. But it is not just race. It is intolerance. Sometimes you hear things about Jews and Czechs."

In the spring of 2005, Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) held a conference in Bratislava entitled "Using Football for Intercultural Dialogue and Anti-Discrimination". That very event seemed to indicate Slovak football was at least addressing the cancer eating away at the sport. Recent evidence would contradict that impression. A couple of weeks before using a match to celebrate the Fuhrer's birthday, the Slovan faithful gave Artmedia Petrzalka's Karim Guede, a Togolese defender, the full monkey noise treatment for 90 minutes of another encounter. More pertinent than the abuse itself though was what came after.

"The approach of club officials and players is also quite disturbing, " says a report on FARE's website. "Players of SK Slovan greeted and clapped their supporters after the match. Slovan Ultras also published an article describing their meeting with club officials, which took place a couple of days after the match with Artmedia. The article says that the meeting was held in a very friendly atmosphere and they have been praised for their support for the SK Slovan team and received support for their activities from the club officials.

When club officials were asked about this incident by journalists, they stated they denounce any racist or fascist expressions. But given their previous support to the same groups of ultras, it does not seem to be meant seriously."

One wonders what kind of response the Irish players will get on Saturday week.