Message to Ireland Supporters
From John Barrington:
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Subject: Booing
Can you bring this statement to the attention of as many as possible. With next week's game against Australia the prospect of this form of behaviour is likely to raise it's ugly head as the Socceroo's have a number of Rangers players in their travelling party. At the last two games eL fans attempted to drown out the booing and perhaps we can do the same on Tuesday night.
Thanks
JB
Quote:
FAI avoids UEFA disciplinary action
Rooney says racist based booing must stop
Dublin, August 13th
Fran Rooney, FAI CEO, has called for supporter power to come into play to eradicate racist-based treatment of players at football matches. "With the fantastic support given by the vast majority of our fans, I would call on everyone who attends our games to exercise their influence on the small minority of so called fans who engage in racist based booing", he said.
The call comes in the wake of UEFA's decision to investigate the booing of Shota Arveladze by a minority of the spectators at Lansdowne Road during the recent game against Georgia. As part of the investigation UEFA asked the FAI to respond to the complaint.
In its response, the FAI told UEFA that the Association unequivocally condemns all forms of racist behaviour and that these sentiments had been expressed in the match programme, that the CEO condemned the behaviour of the section of the fans in the media and that the Manager's programme comments also condemned such behaviour.
The response also pointed out that Mr Rooney personally made contact with Mr Arveladze on the day following the game, to apologise for the behaviour of the minority of fans who had engaged in the booing.
The FAI subsequently received correspondence from the Georgian FA expressing their deep appreciation of the FAI's handling of their visit.
The UEFA delegate at Lansdowne Road was also satisfied overall with what was an excellent atmosphere at the game.
In view of the above UEFA decided not to take disciplinary action against the FAI following an investigation by the Control and Disciplinary Body (of UEFA) into the booing.
Speaking today Mr Rooney said, "the booing on a racist basis must stop before we find ourselves sanctioned by UEFA which can ultimately only have a negative impact on our own team. The tremendous reputation of the Irish supporters is in danger of being tarnished by the behaviour of some people at our recent games. We need to generate a wider awareness of this as an
issue in football and clearly indicate that it is unacceptable, unwarranted and unhelpful", he added.
"We need to create greater peer pressure and the fans need to understand the consequences of this type of behaviour in order to eradicate it completely", Mr Rooney said.
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Sell-Thick fans are ídiots.
UEFA will press to play all games behind closed doors because of the fóols.
Who can defend their actions now and say they care about Irish football aswell.
No one is the answer.
