We are just over a week into the build-up to Ireland’s Nations League ties against Israel and already we have seen a League of Ireland club’s owner asking its chairperson to resign, a former FAI chief executive saying it would be a catastrophe if the games don’t go ahead and a former Ireland manager telling the FAI to “show a real bit of balls and refuse to play”. Only 31 more weeks to go.
This is going to be the drumbeat and mood music around the place for most of the next seven months. It’s unavoidable. Even if Ireland manage to qualify for the World Cup, you can be guaranteed that some slice of their time in Mexico and Atlanta in the summer will be spent talking about it. If we don’t bring it up, someone else will.
A sporting federation making an official application for another to be banned from competition is extremely rare in world sport.
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