World Cup fever shouldn’t include the GAA

RELATIONS with our cross-channel cousins are not as cordial as they once were. The protracted Brexit negotiations gave us an insight into what the British, or to be more precise, the English, really think of us.

We were cast as the naughty schoolboy, the pesky irritant, a creator of unnecessary complications, a bloody nuisance. Indeed, as they grew ever more exasperated, some of the English populace couldn’t understand why Ireland wasn’t just brought back into the Empire where it belonged.

But credit where it’s due, BoJo offered us a significant olive branch this week, one we should really be accepting with no questions asked. It’s 19 years since Ireland played in a World Cup. We came close to qualifying in 2010, only a Thierry Henry handball barring our path, but, as a footballing nation, we are in steep decline.

The qualifiers for 2022 begin at the end of this month, we go into our first two games with no goals scored in 11 previous hours of football. The omens are not good.

Recognising this, understanding that we may never see a World Cup again, Boris had the good grace to include us in his latest well-thought out plan: a joint World Cup bid for 2030.

England has at least 20 stadiums which could host World Cup games, even Scotland has three, Wales probably has two, at a stretch. What do we have? The Aviva.

Although that’s more than Northern Ireland have to be fair.

There’s no real reason to include us in this bid. True, we’re a charming bunch of feckers, a tribe beloved (or so we believe) the world over. And, when we inevitably get annihilated by some fancy-dan South American outfit we’ll join arms with our conquerors, sing songs with them rather than chuck beer bottles and furniture at them.

Plus, England are coming off the back of an unsuccessful bid to host the 2018 finals.

But really we’re the fancy dressing on this World Cup bid, the fourth course in a perfectly fulfilling three-course meal. That hasn’t stopped us fantasising though, dreaming of playing our part, hosting the greatest show on earth.

As previously stated we have but one football stadium worthy of the name and even that has a weird stand where only about 12 people can sit. What about Croke Park I hear you ask, what about the multitude of GAA stadia dotted around the country, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Semple Stadium, the Gaelic Grounds? Couldn’t we fire a few Mexicans in there, host a group game between Algeria and South Korea, distract them from the ancient facilities with more of that charm of ours?

And isn’t it nine years away anyway? Surely we could figure out how to put seats into Hill 16 in that time, upgrade the toilets so that they flush on the first try?

Let’s not even go there. If we are somehow to be included in this bid we should not even countenance the possibility of including the GAA or any of its ancient sporting arenas.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the GAA and everything it stands for, and the possibility of seeing a World Cup knockout game at a Croke Park heaving with German, Dutch, or Argentinian supporters is incredibly enticing.

But it just wouldn’t be worth the hassle. We all remember the rugby game against England, the tears streaming down the Bull Hayes face as the national anthem played, and the shellacking we gave them afterwards.

What we forget is the interminable debate which precluded the decision to allow foreign games to be played in our national stadium; it made Brexit seem like an idle chat about what to get for dinner.

That was just one stadium. Imagine the hullabaloo if it was announced several GAA stadia had to be upgraded in line with FIFA standards, the paddywhackery we’d hear from the village cranks?

As we know, the GAA marches to the beat of its own inimitable drum. It is a peculiar beast, maybe even more peculiar than the perennially abnormal FIFA. The two have no business in the same room. And sadly Croke Park has no place in our token World Cup bid.

So, there’s only one thing for it; time to root out the plans for The Bertie Bowl again I’m afraid.