The Football Thread

[The Heretic]

Useless Everton bastards.

West Ham fan?

[Mower Liberation Front]

Useless Everton bastards.

West Ham fan?

Nope. Just wanted Spurs to go down. Admittedly, any other season I'd have been delighted to see West Ham go down.

[DISRUPTER]

League of Ireland Uber Allez

You are all queers

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CsbmCZjq30

Worth watching in full. Sadlier nails the national sentiment, and great to see him be let say it all and for it to be broadcast to all.

[Pagan Saviour]

Wasn't quite the typical end of season fare, the two red cards were bizarre. Moylan seems to be a decent proposition but last night showed he may have a touch of the Mcclean's about him. But delivery good and made a great nuisance of himself in the box.

Really impressed with Umeh's cameo - if things click for that lad could be a serious player for Ireland.

[Pat Twisted Wrath]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CsbmCZjq30

Worth watching in full. Sadlier nails the national sentiment, and great to see him be let say it all and for it to be broadcast to all.

Im amazed to hear it said in such plain terms on the national broadcaster. Very eloquently put by Richie.

[Bürggermeister]

Worlds collide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDhD_pXconQ

[Pagan Saviour]

Gerry Adams in the #stopthegame clip.

https://extra.ie/2026/06/11/sport/stop-the-game-video-gerry-adams


Oh lord I'm dying with laughter 😆 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[astfgyl]

Worlds collide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDhD_pXconQ

I watched that in the first place for Cech and he's an extremely likeable chap and as good a keeper as the PL has ever seen, but the concept itself is fairly interesting I'd watch a few more of those. I'd even like to see that done with the other instruments or even vocals I think would be good craic.

Anyway

What an unbelievable goalie

[Thorn]

Red card bets all the way lads, what a joke .

Ah I get it, they're trying to trim the whole thing down to a five v five like basketball  or something . We'll have the Knicks in next.

[astfgyl]

Soccer is going the way of everything else in the world. A right circus altogether. This world cup will be no surprise in that it will be seven out of ten soccer with ten out of ten bullshit surrounding it entirely

Like a bad sausage roll you know the ones where it's like ninety percent bullshit flaky pastry and somewhere in there is enough of the worst sausage known to man to allow it to be still called a sausage roll

[Trev]

Soccer is going the way of everything else in the world. A right circus altogether. This world cup will be no surprise in that it will be seven out of ten soccer with ten out of ten bullshit surrounding it entirely

This is the first World Cup in my lifetime that I have absolutely zero interest in, didn't even realise it was kicking off tonight

There's no need to have expanded it to so many teams that half the games are essentially meaningless. Infantino is just Blatter on steroids, didn't think it was possible but he's made FIFA so much worse

[Pat Twisted Wrath]

Ireland v Israel moved to a neutral overseas venue behind closed doors

[Emphyrio]

There was no easy solution to this. I don't think calling off the match was the solution as that only harms Irish football. I'm loathe to do anything that makes it easier for Israel to benefit, which they would have if the match had been abandoned.

At the same time I couldn't condone the Israel flag being lofted and their anthem sung, although it would have been nice to festoon the place in Palestinian flags to really generate a bit of a hullabaloo.

A neutral venue is the best solution in my mind.

[Pagan Saviour]

I think the Irish soccer team is being unfairly made a scapegoat here. I'd even extend that to the FAI, an organisation I completely detest. The decision to ban Israel from participating should have been made by UEFA or FIFA long ago. We shouldn't even be having this conversation. The team didn't ask for this.

The Irish national basketball team has played Israel a couple of times over the past two years and there was nowhere near the same level of outrage surrounding those matches. The popularity of the soccer team is being exploited.

Other than making a moral statement, there's realistically very little to be gained from a boycott. Sadly, it won't end the genocide, Israel won't suddenly be banned, Austria and Kosovo will carry on as normal, and the Irish team and players will be the ones punished. That obviously pales in comparison to the sickening loss of life, but many of the armchair activists demanding a boycott—ironically, many of whom have probably never attended a game in the Aviva—have decided that the Irish team and its staff must become the moral standard-bearers in this case.
They seem to have it all laid out in black and white. Fair enough. But I wonder how many of those same people would be willing to make a similar personal sacrifice themselves, or help cover the costs and fines associated with a boycott. Has everyone working for companies with commercial ties to Israel handed in their notice?

And where do we draw the line going forward? Is there a threshold for boycotts? Is there a quota of deaths or a set of ground rules? Was playing Qatar acceptable because the issues there are "just" human rights abuses, labour exploitation and poor LGBTQ+ attitudes ? Is Germany beyond question because its atrocities happened generations ago?

Ireland itself still does significant business with Israel. Some of that is at EU level, but our ministers and Taoiseach have largely limited themselves to strongly worded statements and expressions of concern.

We're descending into farce with some of this. This week we've had Gerry Adams, of all people, appearing in a "Stop the Game" video.

It's completely wrong that we're still in a position where playing Israel is even being considered, but in the absence of a sane decision from UEFA or FIFA, I'd say play the games and get them over with.