The Republic of Ireland's away qualifying matches for the 2002 World Cup will be televised live by RTE. The station have secured the exclusive rights for national coverage of all five away games, starting with Holland next month and concluding with the Estonia match next June.

RTE had already secured the rights for the Republic's home games, the first of which takes place on October 11th against Estonia.

Niall Cogley, the deputy head of sport at the station, yesterday said RTE was the first national broadcaster in Europe to secure coverage of the 2002 World Cup Finals, which are to be held jointly by Japan and Korea.

Each of the five countries involved in the Republic's Group Two qualifying draw had sold their television rights to the German agency, UFA. They were subsequently sold to Britain's Channel 5, who then completed negotiations with RTE this week to allow the coverage to be fed into Ireland. The opening game will come live from Amsterdam, when the Republic take on Holland on Saturday, September 2nd.