Republic of Ireland manager Steve Staunton is likely to be sacked in the coming days after failing to secure the support of the FAI's chief executive John Delaney.

Staunton has received a stay of execution but Delaney - publicly perceived as the man who hand-picked Staunton - was anything but supportive of his manager and went so far as to distance himself from the appointment.

As the association's top official, Delaney led a three-man sub-committee charged with finding a successor to Brian Kerr whose reign ended two years ago tomorrow.

FAI president David Blood and the association's honorary secretary Michael Cody were the other two officials involved.

"Three people made the appointment," said Delaney. "It was a sub-committee of the FAI of three people who made the appointment of the management team.

"It's unfortunate that I've been personally linked to the appointment when there was a sub-committee of three which was ratified by the board of the FAI, which is a committee of 10."

The FAI's Board of Management is to meet in the coming days to discuss Staunton's position following some sub par performances and results since his appointment.

The latest setback came at Croke Park last night when Ireland required a 92nd minute equaliser to draw with lowly Cyprus, a team who had humiliated Staunton and his players 5-2 in Nicosia a year ago.

Speaking after last night's game, Staunton - who is almost halfway through a four-year term - said he had been given a job to do and was "going to see it through".

Delaney, who described the 1-1 draw as "hugely disappointing", went to ground for much of the day and declined interview requests before eventually speaking on RTE's Six One News.

But his lack of support for Staunton was unmistakable and he refused to confirm that the under-fire manager would be in charge for next month's final Euro 2008 qualifier in Wales.

The FAI board was due to meet on November 13th, four days before that international game in Cardiff.   But that meeting, according to Delaney, could now be brought forward to discuss Staunton's position.

"It's important that board members get time to reflect on recent performances and they'll do that over the next number of days," he said.

"In the past what has happened about major decisions of every nature is that sometimes board meetings have been brought forward earlier to deal with major issues.

"We'll see over the coming couple of days what our board members want to do in that respect.  It's a matter for the members.

"This is the third or fourth "crisis" that is around the current management," he added.  "We had it after Cyprus, after San Marino and Prague.  People are getting conditioned to this form of crisis if you like."

Delaney concluded the RTE interview by branding today a "tough day for anybody involved in Irish football", but when pressed would not accept blame for the current state of the national team.
 
"The chief executive can't play on an international football pitch and score goals, if I could I'd love to," he said.

He added:  "No-one is made of granite, you're obviously going to have tough days and today is a tough day, no question about that."