UEFA faced growing calls last night to order England's Euro 2004 qualifier with Slovakia at Middlesbrough's Riverside Stadium to be played behind closed doors.

Slovakian officials contacted UEFA early yesterday to inform European football's governing body of their concerns for safety following the pitch invasions that marred England's win over Turkey at the Stadium of Light.

And the Turkish Football Association are expected to make an official complaint to UEFA about the crowd trouble that they claim put their players in danger.

Turkish FA board member Selami Ozdemir said: "England must be punished and should not be allowed to play their next match at home.

"There were a hundred people on the pitch after England scored their goals.

"If that had happened in Turkey, we would receive a two or three-game home ban."

Slovakia view this as an opportunity to exact revenge on the FA, who applied pressure on UEFA after racist chanting at England players in Bratislava in October.

Soho Square's intervention prompted UEFA to force Wednesday's qualifier between Slovakia and Liechtenstein to be played behind closed doors.

Urs Meier, the referee for the combustible Stadium of Light encounter, and the UEFA match delegate have both referred to the pitch invasions in their reports.

UEFA decided yesterday to investigate the events and they are expected to announce their verdict on May 1.

The FA have been informed that they should receive no stiffer punishment than a heavy fine, but if Turkey and Slovakia make vociferous objections then UEFA would find it difficult to dismiss them.

UEFA communications director Mike Lee said: "UEFA have the reports from the match referee, in which he has made mention of the incursions on to the pitch.

"We are still awaiting the report of the match delegate but a disciplinary investigation will now be opened to consider the events."

If England's qualifier with Slovakia were to be staged at a near-empty Riverside, it would be a crushing blow to Middlesbrough after they celebrated being awarded their first international since leaving Ayresome Park.

It also emerged yesterday that the Turkish FA were yet to inform their English counterparts of the venue for the game between the two countries in October.

The match had been expected to be staged at Istanbul's notorious Ali Sami Yen stadium, but it may also be held in Izmir, Ankara or Bursa.

As football's powerbrokers debated England's fate, Gary Neville cranked up the feud with Turkey last night by branding the World Cup semi-finalists "fools".

Neville revealed England's players were incensed by the Turks' arrogant boasts that they would cruise to victory in their Stadium of Light grudge match.

In nine games with Turkey, England have now won eight - and have not even conceded a goal in their successful streak that stretches back 19 years.

But after the visitors made supremely confident noises in the build-up to Wednesday's qualifier, Neville left Wearside condemning their attitude.

He said: "I think Turkey's mistake before this game was publicly saying they were going to come here and beat us. You can sometimes be made to look a fool when you start saying things like that.

"I just felt they talked a lot leading up to this game, and when you cross the white line and go on to the pitch, you have to actually play.

"The talking stops then, and if you talk yourselves up before a game it's a very dangerous way to play football.

"I just felt the mood coming out of the Turkey camp was they'd seen the game against Liechtenstein, and I genuinely think they thought they were going to win.

"It's strange because Turkey had never scored a goal against England or beaten us.

"So why should they come over and just roll us over? We're England, and we've got one of the best two or three leagues in the world.

"If they thought they were going to come to our country, and we were going to roll over and die for them, they were wrong. We were going to fight back.

"There's something about Turkey. They try to intimidate you; they try to influence the referee.

"It would have been easy for us to lose our heads, but as well as showing passion we played with our heads.

"We know there's a long way to go in this group and we won't be saying we're going to go on and win this group.

"There are a lot of difficult games ahead."

Neville was angry that England were written off after last weekend's laborious 2-0 win over little Liechtenstein.

That display failed to impress their growing army of critics, but the defender insisted the real England stood up at Sunderland.

He added: "Saturday's game wasn't great to watch and it wasn't great to play in, but afterwards we all said, 'Wait for Wednesday. That's the game we're all going to get up for'."