Enda Brady: Last week shows that we need to merge our two football associations

It’s beyond ridiculous that a small island fields TWO international football teams. Just look at what the Ireland rugby team is regularly able to achieve, writes Enda Brady

We need radical action to make Irish soccer a force. Photo: INPHO

I was weaving my way through the crowds outside the stadium in Prague on Thursday night when a text pinged in from my father, back home in County Wexford. He had just watched another Irish World Cup dream come to an abrupt end.

He’d texted me the title of a Johnny Logan song, What’s another year?. 

The problem here, of course, is that it’s not another year of waiting, it’s four. The next World Cup will take place in 2030.

So what do we need to do to qualify for it and make sure that we’re not just making up the numbers in qualification groups and living off the fumes of glories past?

I’ve one radical idea that would boost the chances of an Irish team regularly reaching World Cups, but it’s not something that is ever on the agenda in any corner of our footballing island. 

And neither set of fans will want it, but it has to happen. One word — unity. It’s beyond ridiculous that a small island fields TWO international football teams. 

I believe the time has come to have a serious, intelligent conversation about how to do what is best for football in Ireland and that is for the two associations to merge and field one team.

Just look at what the Ireland rugby team is regularly able to achieve. One team, one sporting association and one system. 

The end result is a high performance outfit that can go up against anyone in the world and compete. And yes, I know there aren’t that many decent rugby nations in the world, whereas everyone plays soccer.

What both soccer teams have right now is a path to nowhere. Yes there will be the odd frisson of excitement when a sniff of qualification comes along, but that buzz is getting rarer, at the highest level.

The Czechs are a very average side and we couldn’t get past them, never mind beating Denmark if we had played them tomorrow night. If all this sounds negative, it’s really not. It’s reality and it comes from a good place.

I’ve been going to Ireland matches home and away since May 1987. The glory years of the Jack Charlton era followed and they were immense. But all of that is history now and it’s fading fast.

We need radical action to make Irish soccer a force. I’m sure other nations look at our little island and wonder why every other sport competes as one entity, yet when it comes to soccer we are scoring own goals before the kick off.

The Republic of Ireland hasn’t qualified for a men’s FIFA World Cup since 2002. Northern Ireland hasn’t reached that level since 1986. The way things are going, neither side will reach one again.

It hurts to say that, but the facts speak for themselves. Just look at what other countries, smaller than Ireland in terms of players to pick from, are consistently able to achieve.

Croatia has a population of just 3.8 million people and they have reached the semi-finals of the last two World Cups, and one final (in Russia in 2018).

Time to embrace unity

The population of the Republic is now 5.4 million and that of Northern Ireland is 1.9 million, so a combined total of approximately 7.3 million people.

But as a friend of mine pointed out in Prague the other night — the Croatians don’t have the GAA and rugby to worry about, or a government that cares more about horseracing.

So maybe now is the right time for a difficult conversation about the future of soccer. North, south, east and west.

The fans won’t want to consider it and the blazers at the FAI and the IFA won’t want to sit down and begin talks that would lead to one football association on the island of Ireland. 

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As ever in Irish life, north and south, self-interest and money are all that matters.

But if people genuinely care about reaching World Cups and not just watching them on telly and choosing a foreign team to follow, this conversation needs to happen.

Combining all our resources and coming together would be an incredible show of intent. It would take bravery and some tough decisions on so many things, but they can all be overcome if the will is there.

Anthems, flags and kit will seem less important if there’s a trip of a lifetime to plan for. And that’s what’s at stake here. Decades more of oblivion and wilderness, or something positive and tangible.

It’s time to embrace unity and field one team from Ireland. 

As for Johnny Logan? I always felt Hold me now was a better tune...