Venue for Ireland's World Rally Championship bid to be selected this week

Motorsport Ireland president Aiden Harper says the three venues in the running for the right to a host an Irish round of the World Rally Championship in 2025 will be whittled down to the final selection later this week.

On Monday, Limerick Racecourse confirmed its intention to be transformed into a metre service park and media centre as well as the WRC fan zone for the proposed event which would run over three years.

Speaking to RTÉ Sport's John Kenny on Tuesday, Harper confirmed that the Institute of Technology Tralee in Co Kerry and an amalgamated south-east representation based out of Waterford City are the other two parties bidding to be the base for the event, with the candidates to be chosen by close of business of Friday followed by announced early next week.

Ireland last hosted a WRC round in 2009, two years after the inaugural 2007 Rally Ireland, and Harper said his objective has been to revive the prospect of hosting it on this island once again.

"When I became president of Motorsport Ireland, my dream was to bring back a World Rally Championship back to the country," he said.

"So over the last two years we've been looking and seeing what needs to be done to do that.

"A little over six months ago, we wrote out in Motorsport Ireland to all of our 32 motor clubs and asked them to come forward with any suggested areas where they may have in their local areas that would host a WRC service park - the main requirement being 10,000 square metres of solid ground.

"So through a process of elimination, we are down to three locations in the country whereby we have three very suitable venues.

"Any one of them could be turned into a World Rally Championship service park. So we're now down to the final three and it will go through a