Footballer refuses to wear poppy on his shirt

INTERNATIONAL footballer James McClean last night refused to wear a poppy-embroidered shirt for his team’s Championship match.

Clubs up and down the country will wear poppies on their jerseys this weekend to commemorate Remembrance Sunday in the year of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.

But Londonderry-born Republic of Ireland international McClean, 25, said he had decided not to wear a shirt emblazoned with a poppy in the game against Bolton, because it was ‘disrespectful to innocent victims of the Troubles’.

It is not the first time he has refused to wear a poppy.

Last night his club, Wigan, published a letter from McClean to club chairman Dave Whean. In it, he said: ‘I have complete respect for those who fought and died in both World Wars – many I know were Irish-

‘Gesture of disrespect’

born. I mourn their deaths like every other decent person and if the poppy was a symbol only for the lost souls of World War One and Two I would wear one; I want to make that 100 per cent clear.

‘ But the poppy is used to remember victims of other conflicts since 1945 and this is where the problem starts for me. For people from the North of Ireland such as myself, and specifically those in Derry, scene of the 19 2 Bloody Sunday massacre, the poppy has come to mean something very different.’

‘For me to wear a poppy would be as much a gesture of disrespect for the innocent people who lost their lives in the Troubles as I have in the past been accused of disrespecting the victims of WWI and WWII. I am not a war monger, or anti-British.’