"Ireland"? Is that Rugby, Basketball, Cricket even?
Anyhow, this is all a bit of fuss over nothing - local journo's looking for an angle, basically.
The key phrase was: “The fact is we could pick him and play him [in friendlies] but it wouldn’t really count for anything but I don’t think that would send the right message to the rest of the squad.
How about saying "ROI"?
https://inside.fifa.com/fifa-world-r...IRL?gender=men
Paaatrick's Agletic
No need, since there is no other "Glentoran" to distinguish them from.
It's not so long since the IFA team was referred to as "Ireland" and the FAI team as "Eire", or even the "Free State".
Simple fact is, the official name of the latter is "Republic of Ireland", while "ROI" is easier to type, just as "NI" is easier to type than "the North", or "currrently illegally occupied six county statelet" as some would have it.
Bookmarks