Originally Posted by
EalingGreen
I hope that you're merely confused, and not being deliberately obtuse.
The Dublin government does not pick the ROI team, or otherwise organise football within its boundaries. The FAI is not a State body and the governing body for football is the FAI, not the Dail. Indeed, when governments try to interfere in the affairs of a Member Association of FIFA, then FIFA intervenes to prevent this, if need be suspending the Association in question (the "nuclear option").
Which is why FIFA has so many more members than the UN (a point you fail to acknowledge) and is entitled to tell its Member Associations what they must call their representative teams and determine where their jurisdiction applies. On which former point, FIFA has instructed the FAI to call its teams "Republic of Ireland", i.e. to distinguish them from those of its other Member Association on the island, the IFA.
All of which is why it is erroneous, misleading and exclusionary to refer to the ROI team as "Ireland", as though football in the other part of the island didn't exist, or that it is just the same as eg
Rugby or Cricket. Worse still when it is claimed that somewhere in Dublin is the "home" (birthplace) of Irish football, that ignores the inescapable fact that football was first introduced to Ireland in Belfast, leading to the first Irish football club being formed; the foundation of the IFA by 6 Belfast clubs (and Limavady Alexander); the first football stadium beng built; and the first matches, including Ireland internationals, being played in Belfast. All of which happened 40 years before the FAI, or more accurately (ahem) the Football Association of the Irish Free State, even existed.
Yet you ignore all of this to try to deny the blindingly obvious fact that Belfast is the home of Irish football.
Northern Ireland teams are the representative teams of the IFA, nothing more nothing less. And there's nothing "strange" about "Northern Ireland" being a "country" in footballing terms, since the IFA is the fourth oldest Football Association in the world, predating FIFA, never mind the FAIFS/FAI. While many States make all sorts of claims within their Constitution eg Turkey claiming jurisdiction over Northern Cyprus or Serbia over Kosovo, both of which are ignored by FIFA when it comes to football.
Meaning that where you're going wrong is in believing that "country" in the footballing sense is indistinguishable from "country" in the political sense - it is not (UN = 193, FIFA = 209).
See above.
