The recent clamour among apparent followers of sport in Ireland for a unified football team is fanciful, notional and potentially downright dangerous.

FAI boss John Delaney believes qualification for the European Championships in 2016 would be an appropriate way to mark the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, especially now as we have a manager who not only was born in the six counties but was captain of its Northern Ireland football team.

INTERNATIONAL football chiefs were today warned against creating a situation where unionists and nationalists in the North play for different countries.

The Ulster Unionist Party is offering to support a possible challenge to the FIFA ruling that footballers born in the North can play for the Republic if they choose.

Greater priority should be given to funding sports in Northern Ireland at a grassroots level rather than spending it on a stadium, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams claimed today.

A UK government study was ordered today into whether a new sports stadium should be built in Northern Ireland.