Irish Cup Final anthem farce shows DUP still doesn’t get it

The DUP (incorporating the Ulster Unionists) continues to stir up trouble where there was none otherwise to be had. The latest example was its weasel words about the lack of an anthem being played – something which is not new, by the way – at this weekend’s Irish Cup Final.

To be clear, this latest attempt at raising tensions followed on from the DUP raising tensions over parades, then over flags, and then over a football match involving one of the teams which was in the Final. It also just happened to coincide with the First Minister coming under pressure over his failure on a Shared Future stategy, the Health Minister coming under pressure over his U-turn on care homes, and the Social Development Minister coming under pressure over the delay in Welfare Reform. Just happened to coincide, mind…

More than this, it is further evidence that the DUP, just like Sinn Fein, is continuing to sell the people it represents a lie. In 1998, most of us signed up to an Agreement whereby the people of Northern Ireland may opt, by nationality, to be British or Irish. In other words, unlike anywhere else under UK sovereignty, its citizens may opt not to be British and still be good citizens loyal to Northern Ireland – in other words the administration has a single sovereignty, but its people have dual nationality. Whatever its representatives like to claim, the DUP signed up to the precise same deal on citizenship, with no modifications whatsoever even attempted, in 2007. Any DUP representative and any of the people he or she represents has to deal with the straightfoward fact that many of their fellow citizens are not British, while still perfectly good citizens of Northern Ireland.

This brings us to the Northern Ireland football team. The role of an international football team is nothing to do with sovereignty (otherwise there would be no separate England/Scotland/Wales teams, or Palestine or Montserrat or whatever), and everything to do with nationality – hence qualification for a team is determined by nationality/citizenship, with understandable caveats to stop players essentially being bought to compete for a certain association (the way athletes are). Long before 1998 it was clear that a player with either British or Irish nationality may play for Northern Ireland, provided that player qualified by birth, ancestry or residence link. The whole point here is that FIFA made a mistake when it allowed people with Irish citizenship to opt to play for the Republic of Ireland on no grounds other than citizenship – in 1998 (and 2007) we signed up to a deal which makes it absolutely clear that Irish citizenship may come by virtue of a link to Northern Ireland just as much as it does by a link to the Republic of Ireland. If someone is from Northern Ireland, they may be British or Irish (there is no guarantee which); likewise, if someone has Irish citizenship they may be from the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland (there is no guarantee which). Whatever the sovereignty of Northern Ireland, it is clear that to tie Irish citizenship directly to the territory of the Republic of Ireland is wrong under the terms of the 1998 Agreement; as is tying British citizenship alone to Northern Ireland.

The long and the short of it is this: affiliation to the football association of a particular territory is about nationality not sovereignty. Thus the IFA may select players of either British or Irish nationality because those are both nationalities of Northern Ireland. And thus, my friends, there is no reason to assign the anthem of only one of those nationalities to the IFA. Most of all, there is no reason to stir up tensions where none exists – and every reason to provide leadership and explain to people the country they are living in and who their fellow citizens (the ones who play for the same international team) really are.

Of course, they don’t actually play “God Save the Queen” before the Scottish Cup Final either – and indeed when Cardiff City reached the FA Cup Final the (English) FA agreed to play the Welsh anthem despite the fact it does not represent Wales. But, as ever, the DUP was obviously too busy being British to notice…

Suarez should long since have departed

Luis Suarez headed in an equaliser yesterday which means Champions’ League qualification is back in Arsenal’s hands. As an Arsenal fan, this is theoretically good news.  As a football fan, however, the fact remains Suarez shouldn’t have been on the field.

Indeed, Suarez leaves a bitter taste when considering a once great club. The thing about the all-conquering Liverpool FC with which I grew up was that they not only played great football, but they also went about it the right way. When Arsenal went to Anfield and seized the title in injury time in 1989, the home fans stayed on and applauded the visitors – a mark of a truly magnificent football institution with fans to match.

I for one had always respected Liverpool FC for that. Yet this respect had already been shaken by the club’s abject refusal to rid itself of Suarez after a thoroughly unpleasant racist incident involving (the innocent) Patrice Evra. FIFA may be mealy mouthed about racism, but we expect this from the fundamentally corrupt institutions which run the game. We do not expect it from what had previously been the game’s greatest club.

That bitter taste rebounded yesterday as Suarez, not for the first time, did his best impression of Mike Tyson – and not with his fists. The club now has an opportunity to do what it should have done the first time. For the sake of itself and of the game, let us hope it gets it right this time.

Cliftonville’s win chance to kick-start Irish League

It is not popular to say it, but the fact is the Irish League has been in the doldrums for some time. In 1970/71, Arsenal’s double-winning team was defeated in European competition by Glentoran at the Oval, only winning the tie 3-1 on aggregate. By 1990/91, Irish League teams were struggling to beat anyone at all. With no disrespect to the Faroe Islands, the fact that a country with a population less than Bangor’s can produce club teams fit to compete against the best Northern Ireland has to offer is embarrassing.

There are many reasons for this, but one obvious one this century has been the lack of competition. Since Portadown’s win in 2002, only Linfield (usually) and Glentoran (rarely) had won the title. Linfield even completed six doubles (more than were achieved in England during the entire first century of league football) in seven seasons. Average attendances sunk into the hundreds rather than thousands as people turned away from going to dilapidated grounds to watch a foregone conclusion, not least because there was another option of the occasional trip to the Premier League or Old Firm.

North Belfast has the potential to change that, with two superb clubs suddenly emerging as the two top teams. Crusaders, already a reasonable option for a family day out, won the all-Ireland Setanta Cup last season and has fantastic, community-based proposals for a new ground in the coming years. It has also led the way with a ground-breaking, all-weather 3G pitch – at a time when the IFA cannot confirm whether even the new Windsor Park will have undersoil heating! On the other side of the road is Cliftonville, with a fine group of players and officials who have completed a thoroughly deserved Premiership win with more possibly to come. That the two clubs so obviously get on, in the context of North Belfast and not least what happened a couple of months back when their derby fixture had to be called off, is a huge example not just to the Irish League but to Northern Ireland.

Cliftonville’s title win is good news for the Irish League in the obvious way that it provides serious competition for the ‘Big Two’. However, both North Belfast clubs have demonstrated the type of innovation required – on and, just as importantly, off the field – to make Irish League football attractive once again. Just get to know some of the officials and some of the players and you do see so much that is good about the new Northern Ireland, despite recent setbacks. There is now a real chance to kick-start the Irish League, and with it the local game generally, in a way which will bring significant benefits not just at a sporting level but also to local communities.

World Cup Qualification – Update

The 2014 World Cup is still over a year away and as yet no team has officially qualified on the field, but we are now just a matter of months from knowing which 32 countries will compete for it. The time will fly in!

I maintain a record of past World Cups here; below is a run-down of where we are with qualifying for Brazil 2014.

Europe

In Europe there are nine groups, with each of the nine group winners qualifying and each of the runners-up, bar one, entering into two-legged play-offs for four remaining places. The thirteen thus progressing will seek to become the first European team to win a World Cup in the Americas.

Spain is, of course, the current champion and, until recently, that would have earned it an automatic berth. As it is, the Spaniards are making it difficult for themselves in Group I – a baffling draw against Finland last Friday followed the concession of an injury-time equalizer at home to 1998 winner France earlier in the group; anything other than victory in the return match in Paris tomorrow evening would see the French, not the Spaniards, favourites to top the group (leaving the champions to face a play-off).

Spain visits Paris tomorrow evening needing to improve on October’s 1-1 draw against France in Madrid [Jasper Juinen/Getty]

Europe is also notable at the moment for ridiculously strong performances by Iceland and Montenegro - whose combined population is less than a million! Iceland is currently in a play-off place in an admittedly weak Group E; even more remarkably, Montenegro leads Group H ahead of England. The English visit Podgorica tomorrow, although there is still a way to go in the group and Roy Hodgson’s men must still be tipped to win it with all the other teams beating each other and thus remaining well behind.

Elsewhere, the major European footballing powers are dominating their groups. Germany (three-time winner, seven-time finallist, quarter-finallist at every World Cup since 1954), Italy (four-time winner), the Netherlands (three-time finallist) and Russia (Europe’s most populous country) all seem safe - despite the Germans unbelievably tossing away a four-goal lead in the last half hour at home to Sweden last autumn. Group A will fall between a rapidly improving Belgium and the ever-dangerous Croatia (2-0 winner over Serbia on Friday, essentially eliminating its neighbour); and Group G is still wide open with Bosnia-Hercegovina looking good for a first appearance after a big win over Greece on Friday.

Tip: Belgium, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Russia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, England and France likeliest group winners with Croatia and Spain to be hardest challengers and likely to qualify also, even if it takes play-off. Greece and Portugal perhaps likeliest of the rest to complete set, but really too early to say and would depend in any case on play-off draw.

South America

Brazil is of course already deemed qualified as host – which means it will retain its record for being the only country to compete in all World Cup Finals tournaments, winning five of the previous 19. However, alongside Spain, Brazil is the only team which has won the World Cup but not won it at home. Will that change in 2014?

South American qualifying is now down to the final nine teams, who play each other home and away in a single round-robin tournament for four places, with a fifth likely to join them via the intercontinental play-off (against an Asian team).

Currently Argentina is romping clear at the top of the group, with Colombia and Ecuador highly likely to join it. Despite its small population, Uruguay is the only Latin American team other than Brazil and Argentina to have won the World Cup (which it has done twice) or even reach the last four away from home (which it has done four times, including 2010), but it is only marginally ahead of the pack for the remaining place; the challenge to Uruguay and for the final play-off spot is wide open between the remaining five teams, with Venezuela, Chile or Peru favoured - Chile hosts Uruguay in the game of the round tomorrow.

Chile meets Uruguay in Santiago late tomorrow in another big game in an increasingly tight South American qualifying group [Actualidad Futbol]

Tip: Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and probably Uruguay to qualify direct; play-off place wide open, perhaps Peru least likely given not just current position but also remaining fixtures – between Chile and Venezuela former has heritage and latter has form.

Africa

Despite a series of games over the weekend, there is still a long way to go in Africa, where 40 of the continent’s 52 original entrants are currently split into 10 groups of four teams. Each group winner will then face a single play-off tie, over two legs, to determine Africa’s five qualifiers.

In the respective groups, Tunisia (Group B), Ivory Coast (C) and Congo (Brazzaville) (E) look in the most impressive shape (the latter has a flawless record of three wins from three without conceding a goal), followed perhaps by Egypt (G). African Nations’ Cup Winner Nigeria may be the likeliest team to join them, although victory in the Nations’ Cup has been far from a guarantee of successful World Cup qualification in the past. Teams such as Ethiopia, South Africa, Malawi, Guinea, Mali, Benin, Algeria, Cameroon, Libya, Senegal and Angola will still feel they are in with a chance. One team of notable heritage which almost certainly will not make it is Morocco.

Morocco’s feeble 3-1 defeat against Tanzania in Dar-es-Salaam yesterday makes qualification almost impossible [Mohammed Amin]

Tip: Just far too early to say.

Asia

After a highly confusing series of fixtures, hampered further by ineligibilities, crowd trouble and withdrawals, only ten of Asia’s original 43 entrants remain, competing for four automatic spots, plus a potential fifth via a play-off with South America.

The ten teams are split into two groups of five, with the top two qualifying directly. They are just past the half-way stage and, despite having been unimpressive earlier in qualifying, the one clear qualifier now would appear to be Japan in Group B (requiring effectively just one point from three remaining games).

In Group A, Uzbekistan and South Korea narrowly lead the group and have relative home advantage in their remaining fixtures – but Iran and perhaps even Qatar will not have given up yet.

Despite struggling against Uzbekistan in the previous round, Japan may become the first team to qualify for Brazil 2014 tomorrow [Kiyoshi Oti/Getty]

In Group B, Japan has a commanding lead – victory in Jordan tomorrow would officially seal qualification. The remainder of the group is tight, but with relative home advantage to come and a strong record in previous rounds, Australia would appear likeliest to take second, although Iraq’s visit in June may prove decisive.

Tip: Japan almost there. Otherwise, it is very, very close, but past records and balance of home/away future fixtures seem to favour Uzbekistan for first appearance alongside South Korea and Australia. Do not expect fifth Asian team to come through intercontinental play-off.

North/Central America

The final group of six teams, somewhat ludicrously, sees three direct places available, plus potentially a fourth more via a play-off against the Oceania winner (New Zealand). The six teams play each other home and away on a round-robin basis until October.

The group has barely started, but the United States and Mexico would be regarded as perennial qualifiers (they both have been since Mexico’s bizarre expulsion in 1990). Nevertheless, the former lost its first game in Honduras, which may be the other obvious candidate for the top three. That said, Jamaica and Costa Rica have both also qualified in recent times, with Panama the only true historical outsider remaining.

Honduras’ opening come-from-behind victory over the Klinsmann’s United States sets it up for a second consecutive Finals appearance [Eurosport]

Tip: Would be surprise if either United States or Mexico missed out. Honduras likeliest to join them, but yet to be tested away from home at this stage; perhaps Costa Rica likeliest challenger for final automatic spot. Any fourth-placed team marginally favoured over New Zealand.

Oceania

Memorably the only team to go through the 2010 Finals unbeaten, New Zealand has already won in ‘Oceania’, and faces a two-legged play-off against the fourth-placed team in North/Central America to qualify. This will be a stiffer task than last time, when the ‘All Whites’ faced a comparative weaker Asian team (Bahrain).

Tip: No qualifier.

Football Authorities need to get real on racism

The Italian Football Federation has dished out two fines to two Serie A Clubs due to “racist chanting”. The level of the fines? 15000 euro – about a tenth of a top player’s weekly wage. Pennies, in other words.

This is disgraceful. A player gets extra bans for trying to retrieve the ball from a cheating ballboy, but clubs get away with nothing for racism.

It is time to get real. If UEFA and Associations really want to “kick it out”, the initial penalty should be points deductions, followed by relegation. No half measures.

Why not more drop goals?

Amidst an otherwise busy weekend I was able to catch most of the first weekend of the Six Nations’ Championship. Rugby is not an area of expertise for me, but it is a sport I generally very much enjoy watching.

A colleague raised a question on Facebook not long ago: why do teams not attempt more drop goals?

This thought occurred to me again as two drop goals, worth six points in total, proved the difference in Italy’s five-point win over France. So it is fair to raise the question again.

South Africa has always, as a matter of course, sought to ensure its teams never leave the 22 without scoring, and are thus more likely to attempt drop goals than those from other countries. Indeed, the national team earned near notoriety in the 1999 World Cup quarter-final against England, with Jannie de Beer scoring no fewer than five in quick succession to leave the English perplexed and beaten. (They needed him again at the equivalent stage twelve years late, when South Africa dominated Australia but contrived, despite spending almost the entire match in Aussie territory, only to score nine points to their opponents’ eleven).

However, the culture in other countries has been, generally, to shirk the drop goal aside from at the very end of the game. I do wonder if this is exactly that – a “culture”. Is there a sense that drop goals just aren’t fair play, somehow?

Perhaps those more expert in the game at the highest level could explain?!

Test Cricket must remain 11 v 11

I read that support is increasing for the concept of substitute bowlers or batsmen in Test Cricket. This would be a terrible innovation!

The justification for the idea seems to be that the physical (and even mental) demands on cricketers having to adapt from Test Cricket to 20/20 Cricket and everything in between are becoming too tough. I have two problems with this.

Firstly, “substitutes” would defeat the point of the game – a five-day challenge between two teams of eleven who just have to deal what is thrown at them. The weather, the pitch, yes, even the potential for injury are all part of the game – adapting to them tactically and mentally are integral to the challenge. Let us not kid ourselves either that substitutes would only be used for injured players – almost no sooner had rugby union introduced substitutes than tactical substitutions were in practice the norm. Allowing a team to realise it’s made a mistake and can thus throw on the extra spinner it didn’t select originally, or to take off an under-performing batsman, would fall well outside the spirit of the game.

Secondly, I do not accept the premise. Cricketers do not have to switch from Test to 20/20 and back – indeed, increasingly I believe they shouldn’t. The two are diverging, to the extent nearly of rugby union versus rugby league, and that is no bad thing. 20/20 has the potential to capture fans of the game from a certain section of society; and Test Cricket an entirely different section. It may be so for players too. As such, 20/20 should be the innovative version – subs and all. But Test Cricket should remain what it is – the ultimate five-day mental and physical challenge for two teams of eleven.

Portrush should host 2022 Ryder Cup

I have blogged before about the unlikelihood, in practice, of Royal Portrush hosting the Open Golf Championship any time soon. Despite the success of this year’s Irish Open, of Northern Ireland golfers generally, and of our growing tourism sector, the simple fact is there is no room in the current nine-course rotation, and this is not likely to change.

However, there is a more obvious high-profile option – the 2022 Ryder Cup. Not only is Europe due to host it that year, but under the growing convention from 2014 that the UK and Rest of Europe alternate, it is the UK’s turn. After Wales and Scotland, it could justifiably be argued it is Northern Ireland’s turn. There is also no doubt that the intervening decade gives us time for the relevant infrastructure.

So we should move on quickly from what are likely to be forlorn hopes of hosting a major tournament, and instead build towards the biggest golf event of them all. Who’s with me?!

Hockey warning on TV replays (and shoot outs)

My position on TV replays in football is well rehearsed. I am very much in favour of the principle. However, hockey at the Olympics served as a cautionary note about the practice.

Hockey was my father’s sport and has always been in my blood (even if talent for it sadly was not!), and the hockey tournament has always been one of my favourite features of the Olympics since my father was closely involved in the coaching of players – including two from Northern Ireland – who won the gold medal in 1988. However, despite some glittering play from both Dutch teams, a fine team performance by the German men (again in my blood – my father played for Dortmund) and an excellent bronze for the British women, the tournament was one of the disappointments of the London games. This was primarily down to the unbelievably slow TV review system.

My understanding of the system – and I’d be keen to be corrected if I have misunderstood – was that each team was allowed an unlimited number of appeals to the TV review umpire, until such time as one was not upheld. This became subject to the law of unintentional consequences:

• games took a lot longer – constant reviews, constant overturning of decisions and constant arguing about the whole thing took up a lot of time;
• the field umpires lost confidence (or perhaps even lost concentration, aware the TV would sort out any errors) so that, as far as I could tell, the standard of on-field officiating was among the lowest I had ever seen (and in fact in one game the on-field officials seemed to spend much of the time arguing with each other!); and
• the spirit and flow of the game was lost.

I am already of the view that we are now at the stage that too much of the game is reliant on penalty corners – teams are almost playing for them like rugby union teams playing for penalty kicks, a situation made even worse by reviews. Almost every time I switched to watch the hockey, a penalty corner was in the process of being sought, taken, reviewed or generally argued about. It was karma that Germany won the men’s final with two goals from open play, but small consolation after two weeks of almost unwatchable arguing!

Additionally, we also saw the first use of the “eight-second dribble” shoot out in the women’s semi between the Netherlands and New Zealand. I am not sure it worked; it is certainly not applicable to football, because a lot depends on the ability to keep time precisely between first touch and the ball entering the net (which itself requires specific time pieces and TV replays) – a practical impossibility at most levels of the game, both in the case of hockey and football.

Hockey does have a lot to do if it is not to become even more peripheral, as the viewing experience was awful. Football needs to heed the warning – the sight of players surrounding the referee is bad enough as it is.

Unionist over-exuberance Part I – “Team GB”

Unionists in NI can appear, to the external view, a quite impenetrable lot. They spend most of their time emphasising how British they are – more so than any other British people – but when the Olympics come around they seem to argue suddenly that they are not!

Even Zoe Salmon – one of those lovely NI celebrities who is so proud of her homeland she chooses not to live in it [churlishness off] – got in on the act, demanding a change of brand to “Team UK”, thus removing any hint of “Brit” from the title.

Strictly speaking, of course, NI is not part of Great Britain. But this is precisely why the team is formally called “Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. The brand “Team GB” is merely that – a brand.

There are other reasons Unionist protestations seem bizarre, beyond the simple fact that “Great Britain and Ireland” and subsequently “Great Britain and Northern Ireland” have always been the name of the team but are somewhat too long to say most of the time!

Firstly, they of all people should be aware that “Team UK” does not solve the “problem” (even as they define it), as the UK does not include a number of territories included within the British Olympic Association’s team. A Manxman was part of a gold-medal-winning cycling team; an Anguillan reached the women’s long jump final; there were no doubt others – representative of British territories but not of the UK. In fact, therefore, it makes more sense for the word “Britain” (hence “British”) to be hinted at in the brand than for it to be omitted.

Secondly, to be brutal, NI did not in fact contribute to Team GB’s position on the medal table, since this is determined by gold medals and NI didn’t directly win any. It hasn’t, in fact, since 1988. Perhaps if politicians spent more time working out why that is than they do arguing about a name, that may change – and thus strengthen their “case”! Aside from a swimming pool (and even that greatly delayed), NI has delivered very little in terms of appropriate facilities for a start, a point of much more relevance than a couple of initials in a brand name.

Thirdly, “GB” does remain the official identifier for the whole UK in a range of contexts such as vehicle registration plates (and is also the origin of other identifiers, such as “GBM” for the Isle of Man). There are a number of reasons for this, from straightforward tradition (see above re the original name of the Olympic team) to language (“Great Britain” also works as “Grande-Bretagne”, “Grossbritannien” and so on; but the “United Kingdom” does not translate so neatly). In other words, it is just the way it is.

Finally, “Team GB” has in fact proved an astonishingly successful brand since it was first introduced. If it ain’t broke, just get on with it!