Behave or we will demand World Cup switch: Aussies

Australia have asked world soccer's governing body FIFA to switch Sunday's World Cup playoff against Uruguay to a neutral country if authorities in Montevideo can't protect the visiting team from trouble.

Australia's top soccer official said on Friday that he had written to FIFA president Sepp Blatter requesting the match be moved to Argentina if there were any further security breaches.

Soccer Australia chairman Ian Knop said: "We understand and respect the Uruguayans passion for the game but we do not respect behaviour such as that, nor will we tolerate it."

Australia's players were jeered, jostled and abused when they arrived in Montevideo on Wednesday night to prepare for the second leg of the playoff on Sunday.

Uruguay apologised for the lax security arrangements and promised to provide better protection for Australia's players as the incident led to a flurry of government activity.

Knop said Uruguay were embarrassed by the incident and expecting to be reprimanded by FIFA.

"We have been led to believe that FIFA are demanding of Uruguay some explanations of why this has occurred and FIFA have already changed the match commissioner," Knop told reporters on Friday before boarding a plane to South America.

"The Uruguayan government are embarrassed. I spent a long time on the phone last night with the Uruguayan ambassador and they assured me it is a rogue element and it has never happened before.

"I'm not a cynical person but they knew well in advance that our team was coming. We asked them to make sure there was proper security there and there wasn't, and that's just not good enough."

Australia won the first leg of the playoff 1-0 in Melbourne on Tuesday.

The winners will become the 32nd and last finalists for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.