St Pat's boss Tim Clancy says the officials must take "appropriate action" if there are racist incidents in tonight's Europa Conference League clash in Sofia.
Having banked €750,000 for reaching the third qualifying round, the Saints face a difficult away first leg tie against CSKA in Bulgaria (6pm Irish time) with a further €1m on the line.
The Saints can expect to face a hostile atmosphere. Alan Pardew quit as the Bulgarian club's boss in June after his own players were racially abused.
England's Euro 2020 qualifier was halted twice at the Vasil Levski stadium and came close to being abandoned after home fans repeatedly racially abused players on Gareth Southgate's team.
Clancy is hoping that his goalkeeper Joseph Anyang, who was superb in the previous round against Mura, avoids similar treatment.
"You’re hopeful it’ll pass off without incident," said Clancy.
"You need to be brain-dead or knuckle dragging to be talking about racism in this day and age.
"England had a problem out here before. If there’s an incident, it’ll be up to the officials to take appropriate action."
Winger Billy King insists the players will have no problem if the atmosphere is intimidating.
The 28-year-old Scot says the bigger the occasion the better for the Inchicore club.
"Well personally, yeah, I like that," King said. "There's a lot of young boys and stuff but as I said, these are the nights you play football for.
"That's why you want to play in Europe, for these types of nights, and I think that will drive the boys on as we've shown in the past as well, when we've played in hostile atmospheres.
"Hopefully we can use that to our advantage and get a decent result.
"We trained at the stadium earlier on and it's massive, the pitch is big, we're not sure how many fans will be attending but if it's even half full, there will be some atmosphere.
"These are the games that we all look forward to. The boys thrive on these sorts of games and that's what you want to be playing in, in Europe.
"So yeah, hopefully it's a decent atmosphere and hopefully we get a decent result."
The Saints faced a marathon trip yesterday - they flew on a charter out of knock that stopped over in Strasbourg before flying on to Sofia.
Shamrock Rovers felt an exhaustive trip hindered their chances against Ludogorets in the Champions League, but Clancy last night played down his squad's travel issues.
“No, it was quite good actually, we’re right beside the airport, 15 minutes away, so we actually got here a little earlier than expected," he said.
Clancy's biggest issue this week is curing the hangover from Sunday's FAI Cup first round defeat to Waterford, an all the more painful exit given the Saints were the Cup holders.
"The FAI Cup last year was a huge occasion for the club so we're really disappointed to go out of the competition at the first time of asking," he said.
"So it's something that we've spoken about and we're not happy with, but listen, we've got a quick turnaround and we've got to put in a performance that will keep us alive in this tie."
Despite that disappointment, Clancy senses belief in his squad after overcoming Mura - who beat Tottenham in the group stages last year.
"We certainly take belief out of those two legs going into this tie," he remarked.
"But listen, we know it's going to be a big ask and we'll certainly have to have a strong defensive and attacking performance to have a chance of progressing in this tie."
Pat's will be without the suspended Mark Doyle and Adam Murphy, who has a hamstring injury, while Eoin Doyle and Chris Forrester should be relatively fresh after coming off the bench in the 3-2 Cup loss.
King acknowledges that the Saints will have to go up another level to have a chance of progressing to a play-off.
He said: "The Mura game was a big tie for us and we proved that we can compete at that level.
"It was a very good performance at home and we got the job done in the away leg, and I think this is going to be a step up from that.
"They're massive games. The second leg in Mura was a massive night for the club, and this one coming up as well.
"Sofia is an unbelievable team as well with a lot of talented players, a big club. So these are massive ties, the ones you want to be playing in."
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