ABSTRACT
The island of Ireland consists of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and is a relatively small country in terms of population. The Republic has a population of 4.2 million while Northern Ireland has 1.7 million. Northern Ireland is officially part of the United Kingdom and as such the majority of the population profess to be British, are Protestant, and Unionist. The minority of the population view themselves as Irish and contest the sense of belonging to Britain. Sport in Ireland is popular and widespread. Levels of participation and attendance are high but as in other western European regions, participation has been dropping. In the Republic of Ireland, soccer 1 has always been viewed as the ‘secondary’ game, something that is inferior, yet has to be tolerated (Cronin, 1999). In Northern Ireland, soccer was always very important and has provided many examples of the politics/ sport interchange. The three more popular team sports in Ireland are rugby, soccer, and Gaelic games and for two of them (rugby and Gaelic games) the national governing body (NGB) is an All-Ireland body. At the outset, soccer was governed on an All-Ireland basis, but since partition of the country there are two governing bodies: the Irish Football Association located in Belfast and the Football Association of Ireland which is located in Dublin.
