Northern Ireland should have celebrated like a striker who had just scored a goal after being selected to host the Euro 2028 football tournament.
By then, the region hopes to celebrate 30 years of peace without conflict, as long as the conflict itself lasted.
But even before construction began on Casement Park Stadium, chosen as the venue for the five matches as part of a joint UK-Ireland bid, disputes erupted between Northern Ireland’s ‘green’ nationalists and ‘Northern Ireland’ nationalists. It exposes the persistent rift between Ireland. Orange” union tradition.
Casement Park, the home of Northern Ireland’s Gaelic competition, is in ruins and in need of a £120m refurbishment ahead of the Euros. But some football fans argue that the plans will not only far outweigh the cost of renovating local football and rugby venues, but will also bring further benefits to traditional nationalist sports such as Gaelic football, hurling and camogie. .
The spat shows that while peace may have changed many things in Northern Ireland, deep political and social divisions over nationalist and unionist identities remain. .
“Thirty years after the Good Friday Agreement, we have a chance.” [peace deal] The Euros, the second most prestigious football competition in the world, are coming to us,” Deirdre Heenan, professor of social policy at the University of Ulster, told BBC Northern Ireland.
“Can you imagine the tourist and media attention? And turning it into an orange and green issue? That’s totally insane.”
Issues of identity extend to sports as well. Although football is played in both areas, the national football ground, Windsor Park, is in a largely unionist area of Belfast, where Gaelic games form part of the nationalist identity. I am.
The names of the stadiums also reflect the different histories of each community. Windsor Park is reminiscent of the British Royal Family, while Casement Park is named after an Irish nationalist hero.
“I think it will be very difficult to defend… If there is a project that is supposed to be a legacy of football, football will not benefit,” said the former Northern Ireland Sport member of the Democratic Unionist Party, the largest pro-British group. Minister Gregory Campbell said.
The Football Association of Ireland, which was founded in 1880 when Britain ruled all of Ireland, supports the use of Casement Park, but said it would take five minutes for the stadium to be ready for the competition in June 2028. He says they need to have spades on the ground by the end of the month.
However, the Official NI Supporters’ Clubs Association (Aonisc), which was set up in 1998 after the unrest, insisted that the football tournament should be held at a football stadium and not at a Gaelic ground like Casement Park. There is.
At a meeting with the IFA in December, Aoniscu raised concerns about the “exclusion of the National Stadium, Windsor Park, the need to provide a lasting legacy, and increased financial measures for local football”.
Further complicating the situation, one of Casement Park’s contractors has gone bankrupt and its joint venture partner will not proceed with the project.
Aonisc Chairman Gary McAllister said: Who will build it? Will we make it in time?
“The other aspect is where is the legacy of football? Where is the additional investment in football? And why can’t we host matches at our national stadiums?” he added. did.
Trevor Ringland, a trade unionist and former rugby star who co-organized the Rugby Peace International Conference in 1996, said the unrest had undermined the reconciliation achieved by football fans in Northern Ireland.
“They challenged the sectarian songs that were once sung, [Britain’s] Place red, white, and blue on the terrace to form a “green and white army” [supporters club] It is welcomed all over the world,” he said.
Mr Ringland added that the euro could provide financial support to the region, which is one of the poorest in the UK.
IFA chief executive Patrick Nelson said Windsor Park was too small to be a Euro contender and said there was “no route to funding expansion”. He said it was either Casement Park or “ambitions” for regional football.
In 2006, Northern Ireland opened a sports venue for shared football, rugby and Gaelic matches on the site of the infamous Maze Prison, where pro-Ireland republicans and pro-British paramilitary groups were imprisoned during the unrest. announced plans to build a
But three years later, the plan was scrapped due to lack of political consensus. Work progressed on refurbishing Windsor Park and Ravenhill Rugby Stadium, but Casement Park faced planning problems.
Funding for the renovation of Casement Park will come from the UK Government, the Gaelic Athletic Association (Ireland’s governing body for the national sport), Northern Ireland’s own finances and the Irish Government.
Claire Hanna, from the small nationalist Social Democratic Labor Party, said there was “no greater legacy” than using Euro 2028 to fund long-promised small football stadiums.
IFA’s Nelson said hosting the tournament would be a “pivotal moment for football and society”.
But in Northern Ireland, the past has not yet been buried in history, even as the region looks to the future.
“Legacy comes in many forms,” Nelson said. “It would be a shame to miss this opportunity to strengthen collaboration between communities, given that the people here have had a difficult past and are still on a journey.”