Rid soccer of tabloid culture

IS IT really necessary for all Irish soccer fans to be either anti-McCarthy or anti-Keane?

Life and certainly soccer is hardly so simple. What is simple and obvious is the influence of English tabloid culture on how we are starting to behave as so-called fans of our national team. Such a culture (if it can be called that) has wrought havoc on English teams and managers for decades front page gossip about the intimate details of their manager's love-life appeared just before their game last week: that's how much tabloid media care for their team's chances.

We may rightly question the downright stubbornness of Keane in refusing to play under McCarthy, and McCarthy in steadfastly refusing to select John O'Shea, Andy O'Brien and Clinton Morrison for the first team, but resorting to useless simplification of a complex situation in which two passionate individuals genuinely believe they are right, and booing our own national team, is not what Irish soccer fans are about.