Let’s kick to touch on 32 county Ireland team

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

Usually suggested by individuals completely unfamiliar with football (Enda Kenny, for example), the ‘example’ of the Irish rugby team is often patronisingly cited as something for soccer folk to aspire to. This, despite the fact that having a unified rugby team has obviously done little in terms of developing successful and winning teams, with just one Grand Slam for Ireland since 1948 and a continued inability to beat southern hemisphere teams, even when five points up and 30 seconds from full time.

Association Football is still at its core a working man’s game and has a far more tribal following than most other sports. For example, the Northern Ireland football team has been central to the identity of the largely Protestant, working class communities of east Belfast. Has anyone ever asked them for their thoughts on disbanding team NI in favour of a 32-county soccer team?

The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are two separate and distinct footballing districts, governed by separate associations and followed by supporters from what remains a vastly different social, religious and political divide. John Delaney deserves credit for his stance on this subject.

In a recent interview he referred to the prospect of a 32 county soccer team as ‘intrinsically linked to a political solution’. In other words, the possibility of a unified team will only become reality when the free minded folk of Northern Ireland decide to join us, therefore a 32 county football team is about as likely as Michael Stone and Johnny Adair tap dancing at Celtic Park.

For the sake of Irish soccer supporters’ sanity alone, it may be better if this dream never materialises.

David Levy

Passage West

Co Cork