Scotland’s hopes of co-hosting the Euro 2008 football championships were all but wiped out yesterday following a vote by the Gaelic Athletic Association . A motion at their annual congress in Dublin calling for the repeal of rule 42 .
However the move was overwhelmingly defeated by 197 votes to 106.This will come as a severe blow to the Scottish Football Association, the Scottish Executive and the Irish government, who had all banked on Croke Park being part of the final proposal. The joint bid depended on the Irish providing two of the eight stadia required to host the championships. They had drawn up a short-list of three, including the 80,000 seater Croke Park.
Also being considered is Landsdowne Road . However, at this stage it fails to meet UEFA’s strict safety requirements. And the overall opinion in the sporting world,the third option, the proposed £1 billion Stadium Ireland, will fail to receive the political backing necessary for it to go ahead. Scotland and Ireland now have just 12 days to come up with a set of definite proposals which they, along with the other six Euro 2008 candidates, are required to present in detail to the UEFA congress in Stockholm. But the bid team say, although both Newcastle United FC and the English FA have offered the use of St James’s Park , they will not be looking to England to bail them out.
Yet despite the Irish chaos, and the fact there is still no agreement about where the additional two stadiums in Scotland will be built, both the Scottish Executive and the SFA say the bid will go ahead.
Desperately attempting to put a positive spin on the situation, a Scottish Executive spokesman claimed yesterday’s vote did not threaten the bid’s chances of success but merely “clarified the options available to the Euro 2008 team”.
GAA chairmen were fearful that by allowing soccer to be played in Croke Park it would eventually pressure them into opening up all the other grounds in Ireland.
Now let us as fans say to the GAA, how many Green shirts are around the world, with "Keano" written all over the back? How much capital is generated WORLDWIDE, through Soccer and its advertisment knock on affects? Soccer and the GAA are completly different sports, with the latter of the two bore into the heart of most Irish people. However for the prospect of eleven professional sportsmen, representing the Republic of Ireland on a field, against the worlds greats, does not seem to turn on any switches in the GAA boards heads.
Lets compromise, and give Irish Soccer the Birth it deserves. Afterall, we have knocked the Dutch out of the World Cup finals, and we rank as 18th in the FIFA world ranking. Speaks for itself really?
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