UEFA – the highest European football body – has fined the Football Association of Ireland (FAI, for its acronym in English) 20,000 euros for some verses allegedly in favor of the IRA that some of the players of the women’s team intoned after their victory against Scotland in the playoffs for the 2023 World Cup.
UEFA’s ethics and discipline body has justified the sanction, alleging that that song was “a violation of the basic rules of good conduct”, according to the statement collected by the newspaper ‘Irish Times’.
The Irish federation, which already apologized at the time, has reacted to the sanction by recalling that they apologized “to all those affected” after those events that occurred in October at the Hampden Park stadium in Glasgow.
“The FAI has assured UEFA that all the players and staff of all our international teams have been and will continue to be reminded of their responsibilities each time they represent their country. The FAI will have no further comment on this matter.” The agency settled in another statement.
After that celebration, the Ireland coach, Vera Pauw, also came out to apologize and acknowledged that a lot of people had been hurt. “It doesn’t matter if the players wanted to say something or not (…) but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t realize what they were doing,” she apologised.
Those verses sung by some Irish players are ‘Ooh ah, up the Ra’, from the song ‘Celtic Symphony’ by the Wolfe Tones group, which have traditionally been considered a veiled way of supporting the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the arm armed who fought for the independence of the entire island of Ireland from the United Kingdom.
