QuoteWhy do they use the English National Anthem?Originally Posted by Blanchflower
No. It's the Ulster cross with the yellow background changed to white. As EG has pointed out, the St George's Cross is narrower.
Why would they use an England flag?
North-South Ministerial Council???Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Better tell Bertie and his ministers to remove themselves from the North-South Ministerial Council on which they represent the South.
Never heard of it. But then again I'm not that really interested in inter-county relations.
Why do they use the English National Anthem?No. It's the Ulster cross with the yellow background changed to white. As EG has pointed out, the St George's Cross is narrower.
Why would they use an England flag?
Well, since youngirish was talking in general terms, generalisations were quite apt, and hence no need for your intervention.
That may or may not be correct, but it doesn't mean that the Southern flag represents NI. In reality, the Southern flag represents ROI and the NI flag represents NI.
The IFA team represents NI, and hence the NI flag is used. It is not the IFA's fault if "almost 50%" (as you claim) consider the flag of another country to represent them: that is their free choice.
No, but presumably the poster playing down the sectarian/anti-Semitic behaviour of ROI fans would so describe it.
Last edited by Blanchflower; 13/11/2007 at 1:02 PM.
Why do who use the English National Anthem? What even is the English National Anthem? Land of Hope and Glory? Jerusalem? Swing Low?
Why would it be even more dangerous?
Long time viewer here, first time poster!No. It's the Ulster cross with the yellow background changed to white. As EG has pointed out, the St George's Cross is narrower.
Why would they use an England flag?
I don't think the reason that NI nationalists are none too keen on the Ulster Banner Flag has too much to do with whether its has the St. George's Cross / crown on it etc. but a lot to do with the fact that it was the banner of a biggotted and sectarian gov. (in the 50 years of its existence, I think there was only 1 catholic minister despite 30-40% of the population being catholic/nationalist) that was suspended by the British Gov. for its inability to govern the people of NI.
Just on the equality issue of football within NI football - I'd be pretty sure there would be no problem for the IFA to select players from nationalist background or hiring officials to work for the 'executive' which some people might think of as just 'window dressing'.
The litmus test though as to how equal everything is would be in the running of the IFA. How many/what percentage of elected representatives on the IFA executive come from catholic/nationalist backgrounds?
Oh not you too GR?!You know that he didn't say anything that the IFA or its managers have ever discriminated against Catholics.
We've had this discussion long ago. Neither has the IFA discriminated in its staff (both players and officials: Head of the IFA, circa WW1 was the Catholic chairman of Belfast Celtic, Austin Donnelly) even during the time when they were encouraged by Stormont just to employ Protestants. The problem is down to identity.
This is the cooooooooooooolest footy forum I've ever seen!
As any lawyer will tell you hard cases make bad law. The consequences of changing the rules simply to suit the IFA would set a precedent that would cause even more complications. Perhaps you could suggest what form the rule change would take?Why would it be even more dangerous?
He insinuated that there was discrimination in the team
"but nobody could claim that the NI football team is anywhere near equally representative of both the Nationalist and Unionist communities in the North" and therefore the IFA had "no right" to complain if "nationalists" wanted to play for the South.
But he has since retracted the insinuation.
Utterly ludicrous comparrison which does you no credit.
As someone else posted there was no anti semetic beahviour at that game, any anti israel stuff (which was miniscule, I don't recall any chants, simply the display of some Palestinian flags) was regarding politics rather then relegion (the 2 don't have to be linked, believe it or not).
Did this 'anti-Semitic' behavior make it onto Youtube?
God Save The Queen, which is the one you use...unless inserting 'No Surrender' in the middle of the chorus makes it the NI anthem.
This is pointless for three reasons. Many Catholic/Nationalist sporting administrators are involved in Gaelic sport, which I believe - although I could be wrong - far more clubs than rugby in the 6C. Secondly, these people would no more be interested in working for the IFA than suporting NI. Thirdly, seeing that the IFA didn't discriminate during the Stormont era, I'd doubt they'd start now.
I don't doubt that the IFA want to represent everyone in NI. What the IFA fail to see is that the steps they need to do to achieve this will ultimately alianate much of their traditional support.
This is the cooooooooooooolest footy forum I've ever seen!
1. It wouldn't "simply" be to "suit the IFA", but to establish fairness by preventing FIFA members from having all their players automatically eligible for another FIFA member by virtue of extra-territorial citizenship laws. As noted above, it may also "suit" the Bosnian FA, and former Soviet FAs.
2. The suggested rule change would be to apply the criteria already in use by FIFA for other situations (e.g. where one's nationality qualifies one for more than one team, and when one changes nationality) - i.e. birth, parentage, grandparentage, 2 years' residence.
You might want to play it down, but, to be consistent, you might also want to play down sectarian or political behaviour by other sets of supporters. I play down neither.
I forget
You stated that eligibilty criteria was for Federations to go by.
I argued that Fifa elig criteria was swayed in favour of the player.
If the FAI are abusing the spirit of Article 15, I would need to see evidence to back that up.
Players have a right up to age of 21 to change their minds and players have changed their minds. So FIFA´s criteria works.
IMO
The Spirit and the letter of Article 15 at present covers players like Darron Gibson who have (if uncapped at senior level) until the age of 21 to decide whether or not the Republic is their first choice.
FIFA´s legal board are not bound to follow precedent (as you might have suggested), they are quite capable of making things up to suit a situation.
.But they need good reason to change a statute.
I certainly do not see a can of worms being opened.
The 2 Federations should sit down and work out some solution with specific reference to the Irish situation.
I've no idea.
God Save the Queen is the UK anthem, not the English anthem.
My instinct is that some NI fans here are just looking for an excuse to identify an element in our support that exists - or certainly existed - in theirs
Stuttgart. Not I. There's an element in every support that shows its prejudices around support for the team. That's the default surely? Of course the huge majority of your fans are only interested in the game, which I'm sure Lopez will confirm over a Sangria on Saturday.
Equally, there's ****-stirring, but that's more from your own media. Sunday's Indo bleated about the possible appointment of a British manager (Souness) to succeed Staunton being vetoed by supporters of a British team, rivals to one of his previous clubs
They still fly the Ulster Banner and play GSTQ though at games which was the main point I was trying to make so the team does not represent the cross community equally and nor can the IFA claim it does while this continues
Young Irish. I understood your point about symbolism. But they can, and I support them. The welcome to fans, players and others that I mentioned outweighs the symbols. For what it's worth (probably zilch) I would prefer our flag excluded the crown and our anthem was Gloria or Alternative Ulster. I ignore the former and urinate during the latter
More seriously, to repeat my roundaboutery suggestion, why change our symbols in response only to those who've already rejected the team? I mean, people can support who they like, but don't need to rubbish teams they choose not to support.
Estonia (at least) are in trouble with the EU for basing citizenship on the ability to speak Estonian. This discriminates against some people whose family has lived in Estonia for centuries if not millenia. Therefore, with such a policy they have no right to complain if these people play for another country
Lopez. I think the real problem there is that mother Russia often won't offer them citizenship, which makes them stateless (about 9% of the population in 2006, source http://www.stat.ee ).
It's the opposite problem to the one our fans are getting annoyed about. AFAIK, there just aren't any exact parallels with the Irish situation. Hungary MIGHT have been one, but they decided in a 2004 referendum not to give foreign-based Magyars, Szeklers etc. citizenship. Both public opinion in Hungary itself, and nationalist politics in next-door Romania were opposed.
PS at Lopez's suggestion, I read back that YI wasn't suggesting the IFA discriminated in choosing players, appointing managers etc. Fair enough, but the implication is still there that flags and anthems serve the same purpose in deliberately alienating fans. I disagree.
Lopez suggests it may be because making nationalists more welcome would alientate many unionists, if we ran out to Riverdance or something
Last edited by Gather round; 13/11/2007 at 1:45 PM.
Neither compare with booing one of your own players does it?
Anyway, seeing that you are continuing to bang on about this subject (anti-Semitism at an Irish game), tell us what you know about what happened?
This is the cooooooooooooolest footy forum I've ever seen!
No I didn't. I implied that the team does not appeal to both Unionist and Nationalist communites equally. I never mentioned anything about players being picked based on political leanings or inferred anything of the sort. You read what you wanted to read into what was I admit an unintentially (slightly) ambiguous statement. But you found what you wanted to find in it without taking into account the broader meaning of the word representative and the posting in it's entirety. Needless to say I cleared it up for you in my subsequent post but again if you want to ignore that then feel free to do so.He insinuated that there was discrimination in the team
"but nobody could claim that the NI football team is anywhere near equally representative of both the Nationalist and Unionist communities in the North" and therefore the IFA had "no right" to complain if "nationalists" wanted to play for the South.
But he has since retracted the insinuation.
For the record here's what I posted:
Tbh I find it hard to feel too sorry for the IFA now that they are worried that they are going to lose some players since they have for a long time promoted a team that has only represented one part of the political divide in Northern Ireland. Yes things have improved recently but nobody could claim that the NI football team is anywhere near equally representative of both the Nationalist and Unionist communities in the North. What right now, therefore do the IFA have to complain if a few of those same Nationalists want to play for a team that they feel more so represents them as Irish people.
How could the IFA lose nationalist players if I was stating they never picked any in the first place? The post wouldn't make sense would it? What improvements was I referring to recently if I was stating that the team didn't include Nationalist players in the past? I was talking of the anthem, flags, perceived secterianism etc.
Go wan admit it. You only read that line and got so pi**ed off you couldn't finish the rest of the post didn't you?
Last edited by youngirish; 13/11/2007 at 1:44 PM.
I said there was a balance. I thought you did too.I forget
You stated that eligibilty criteria was for Federations to go by.
I argued that Fifa elig criteria was swayed in favour of the player.
What is the "spirit" of Article 15?
Indeed they do.
No doubt any revised criteria would also work!
More accurately the letter of the rules consequential to Article 15 dealing with players of dual nationality cover Gibson. I say those rules should be changed because the South's (and any other country's) extra-territorial laws mean that one country can pick two-countries'-worth of players, which is unfair.
There would be no need to change a statute. Just bring out one of those circulars to provide consequential rules to deal with particular situations (as they've already done to deal with dual nationality, etc.)
But to do that would mean changing Article 15, do you seriously expect them to do that?
Last edited by Cowboy; 13/11/2007 at 1:36 PM. Reason: typo
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