Why Can't We Just Have One Football Team?

I love when Ireland qualify for major tournaments in soccer. It makes life feel very important. It just doesn't happen enough. We haven't qualified for anything since the World Cup in 2002 while our Northern brethren have to go back as far as 1986 since they last had anything meaningful to shout about. Looking on with envy at the success of the Irish Rugby team but not really being able to join because I feel no affinity with the game, it got me wondering why they can play together as one team yet we in the footballing fraternity have two.

It all goes back to a split in the Irish Football Association around 1921 obviously enough. To the uninitiated this is the year Ireland was split in two and has been divided ever since. The football associations followed the politicians (never a bright idea) and 90 odd years later, soccer is the only sport in this country which is played under two different flags. I can imagine there was quite a bit of aggro about it at the time. It was an emotional time and some things were said which we didn't mean, some shots fired which we'd take back if we could but those days are behind us, long since gone and all that is left behind are two struggling, moderately successful international football players continually at each others throats over the allegiances of very, very average players.

The Good Friday agreement was supported by about 95% of the population of the island so can we take it that officially at least there is no longer a dispute between the two states. We are not the Koreans by a long stretch. Since everything is now hunky dory between North and South and our public representatives head off on dirty weekends, I mean, political junkets, I mean, Trade Missions together surely our football teams can work together to give Irish people everywhere a bit more to celebrate.

If Ireland had one soccer team, the fact is that we would be more likely to qualify for major tournaments which to my mind would be a good thing. The historical reasons which initially caused the split in the organisations are no longer in existence and they need only look to their rugby counterparts to find a successful template on which to base their unity.

There is no point in both associations going on achieving hardly anything when if they united all Irishmen under one flag it might give everyone something to cheer about. It's makes sense commercially too. Both countries and the sport would be richer if we qualified for major tournaments. The compromise needn't be political. I'm sure both sides could agree on an anthem (why not play both) and a flag we could all play under. In spite of it's appearance to the contrary, international football is not tied up with national politics.

We could do with Johnny Evans and I'm sure they could use Given, Duffers, Robbie, Big Richard and a few more so everyone's a winner. When all is said and done, I'd rather Ireland qualified for the World Cup or the Euros than having everyone sitting at home watching them on TV safe in the knowledge that at least we didn't step on anyone's toes.