NI Conservatives’ spokesman for sport, Trevor Ringland, has warned local politicians to “stop using football to make purely political points” after the DUP and UUP interfered in an IFA decision not to play the national anthem at the Irish Cup Final.
“This is a decision for the football authorities, supporters of either club and fans of the sport locally”, Trevor emphasised. “The UUP has talked about unease among ‘not only football fans, but the wider community’. To be brutally honest, if people are not football fans their views on whether the anthem should be played at a football final or not are completely irrelevant.”
“As a sports fan, I get the sense that the vast majority of genuine supporters from either club see this as a sideshow and are focussed simply on whether their team lifts the Irish Cup on Saturday. The anthem was not played in 2009 either, which caused no controversy, and it appears that the issue is now being stoked up by some politicians and people whose prime agenda is not football.”
“Far too often sport, and football in particular, is used by parties to make cheap political points, whether by encouraging the idea that Catholic players should play for the Republic of Ireland rather than Northern Ireland or trying to stoke fears about an anthem change for our international team. Politicians should be doing more to address the problems which sports face, rather than causing more difficulties by using sport as a political football.”