Quote Originally Posted by pineapple stu View Post
The idea anyone could take offence at Irish fans on an Irish football forum referring to the team as Ireland is a bit mental Ted
In the same way as the Macedonian FA could not claim the name "Macedonia" for their NT, it implies that the FAI team is "the" Irish team on the island, with the IFA team merely some sort of minor adjunct:
https://inside.fifa.com/fifa-world-r...MKD?gender=men

Whereas as far back as the 1950's, FIFA directed that only the IFA was entitled to use the name "Ireland", albeit outside of competitions where the IFA and FAI teams might meet (eg World Cup or Euro's etc). At the same time, they required that the FAI use only "Republic of Ireland" for all official purposes. Of course, the fact that the IFA voluntarily switched to calling themselves "Northern Ireland" in the early 1970's received little such reciprocation from the FAI.

Indeed, I myself recall our fans at Windsor still singing and chanting for "Ireland" throughout most of the rest of the decade, at a time when the FAI team was routinely referred to as "Eire".

Either way, we [NI] are not "the north", so I would appreciate it if people here showed some basic courtesy, esp since "NI" is so much easier to type.

"And if you know your history..."