France hope to play the Faroe Islands as scheduled

PARIS, Oct 13 (Reuters) France remain hopeful of playing today's Euro 2008 qualifier against the Faroe Islands at the scheduled 1500 GMT start time despite problems flying into the capital, Torshavn, the French Football Federation (FFF) said.

The French team's plane failed to land in the Faroe Islands yesterday because of bad weather and was re-directed to Bergen, Norway, where the players spent the night.

''We will take off (from Bergen) for the Faroe Islands at 0900 GMT 1430hrs IST and still hope to play as scheduled,'' FFF spokesman Yann Le Guillard told Reuters today.

European soccer governing body UEFA regulations state that if a team fail to arrive 24 hours before kick off, they can ask for the match to be postponed.

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