Yeah, looks like it's him. The google cached version is still available: https://webcache.googleusercontent.c...&ct=clnk&gl=ie
Clicking the "Philip Quinn" link at the top brings you to this page: https://extra.ie/author/philip-quinn
Back out in the open. Tomorrow's Irish Mail.
20180305_235543.jpg
Same journalist
Not sure when the article was published on extra.ie but I know Mr. Parker put the link up here on Sunday night. Is it slightly odd there was a lag on Monday in publishing the article in the Mail? That's very dependent on when the article was published Sunday.
I'd agree to a certain extent. After a certain length of time, the lack of a flat-out denial is telling. That said, the fact that the article has just been pulled without explanation or comment doesn't fill me with confidence in the journalist either. Why would they not stand over their own story, if it is 100% accurate?
I think the power of the IFA to just make this go away is being overstated - these comments, if true, are a serious story, and I can't imagine an organisation like the BBC simply going along with the IFA on this.
Last edited by osarusan; 06/03/2018 at 9:46 AM.
Well now that it has been published again I think we can all be fairly confident of its accuracy. Sports journalists are so be holding to the IFA and O'neill is unreal in the North. A journalist knows that if he falls foul of either, much of his job will be impossible due to losing access. It would not surprise me that they were asked to sit on it. Even today there still isn't a peep out of them that I have seen.
Michael O Neill is driving a precarious route on this one . Perhaps the Guardians of Sensibility might have a word with him to keep a straight and sensible line . Less chance of drawing attention to his manoeuvring .
RTÉ & the Irish Independent are both reporting it. Neither mention the sectarian accusation a such, so it reads slightly softer maybe.
From the RTE article:
Perhaps Extra.ie were told to delete it as it was an Irish Daily Mail story. (No idea who the journalist Philip Quinn is, may be a freelancer)Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail, Michael O’Neill said the number of players that have opted to play for the Republic and not made a senior appearance is in double figures.
We should start targeting Prod players as well, just to see the head on him
That's actually how I would like our MON / Association respond to this, if they chose to acknowledge it at all. Make clear all Irishmen are entitled to and very welcome to represent Ireland and will all be welcomed by everyone in Mexico, should they chose to do so. Don't take a backward step here.
Don't think there's much chance of MON addressing it. From my memory, he seems to be keeping well back from this topic. I would love us to have a manager that would take a more responsive approach to these assertions coming from Michael O'Neill (not the first time either). Trap probably wasn't aware of the topic. Kerr has always been soft on it and Staunton wasn't around long enough or exposed to it.
This is from the RTE article, which is not the case.
Players born on the island of Ireland have the right to represent either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland and can switch, as long as they have not already played in an official competition at senior international level for either country
Quinn is well-known and has been around a good while. I've seen him interviewed for documentaries/features on Irish football before. I'm not sure when this one below would have been made exactly, but he features in it discussing the Ireland-Italy game from World Cup '94 at 1m33s:
Has anyone seen the full text of the Irish Daily Mail interview? I wonder does it feature the more explicit accusations of "sectarian"/"unscrupulous" recruitment and "weasel[ing] away"...?
Last edited by DannyInvincible; 06/03/2018 at 12:43 PM.
Tony O'Donoghue steps up: "This one is for James. James, you were born within the 6 counties and are passionate about representing Ireland as it is your country. Can you understand how others from the 6 counties have played or play for Northern Ireland despite coming from, what from the outside look like, nationalist backgrounds? That must be very hard for you to reconcile, James, is it?"
Here's something I'd written after the article had been removed from the web and before the interview was published again today, although I primarily sought to challenge much of what O'Neill said because, even if his words hadn't been true, the quotes were still representative of popular sentiment within the NI fan-base: https://danieldcollins.wordpress.com...itment-policy/
It is particularly hypocritical of O'Neill to scold the FAI for allegedly asking players to switch and then not picking them considering he himself was, according to Shane McEleney, "torturing" the player about switching from the FAI to the IFA, yet O'Neill has completely ignored the player at senior level since.
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