EUROPEAN FOOTBALL GOVERNING body Uefa have fined the Football Association of Ireland €20,000 over the pro-IRA chants sung by members of the Irish women’s national team while celebrating their World Cup play-off win against Scotland in October.
Some members of the squad were filmed chanting ‘Ooh Aah, up the Ra’ while singing The Wolfe Tone’s ‘Celtic Symphony’ in celebrating a historic win which earned qualification for the World Cup for the very first time.
Uefa opened an investigation into the chants citing “potential inappropriate behaviour”, and have today fined the FAI €20,000 for what they deem as a “violation of the basic rules of decent conduct.”
There are no further sporting sanctions.
A Uefa statement read, “following an investigation conducted by a Uefa Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector regarding the potential inappropriate behaviour by players of the Republic of Ireland Women’s team in the aftermath of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifiers play-off second leg match played against Scotland on 11 October 2022, and the subsequent disciplinary proceedings opened against the Football Association of Ireland, the Uefa Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body has taken the following decision: to fine the Football Association of Ireland €20,000 for the violation of the basic rules of decent conduct.”
In a statement, the FAI accepted the fine while reiterating their apology for the chants.
“The Football Association of Ireland notes and accepts the sanction by the Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body of Uefa following Uefa’s independent investigation into a potential breach of Uefa’s Disciplinary Regulations.
“The FAI and the Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team has apologised to all affected by events after the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup Qualifying Play-Off against Scotland in Hampden Park in October.
“The FAI has assured Uefa that all players and staff across all of our international teams have been, and will continue to be, reminded of their responsibilities every time they represent their country. The FAI will be making no further comment on this matter.”
Ireland have been drawn against Australia, Canada, and Nigeria in the group phase of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, and they will open the tournament against co-hosts Australia on 20 July next year.
Joke.
@Shane Power: They just don’t get it do they lad
@John Murphy: FFG could easily pay that with rental income this month. They could probably cover it a hundred times over. Just with December’s rental income
@Shane Power: and so them should.. proper order
@Shane Power: You’re right….. They should have been fined more!!!! & even more still for bringing the Wolfe Tones /Provisional Wolfe Tones/ Real Wolfe Tones on whatever versions that are around now, back into the limelight…..chancers!!!!
@pistachio 32: Mary Lou could ask hutch for the moment along with her other political donations
@Shane Power: ua ua ua
Yet if the English fly banners with pictures of the crown forces, nothing would be done.
@Seán Ó hAodha: and why would it?
@Max Bailey: because of all the wars they have start plus the illegal wars they participated in like Iraq their invasions of so many other countries
@Max Bailey: the British think they have a monopoly on terrorism – Hypocritical much!
@Seán Ó hAodha: I have never seen flags like what you describe..being going to soccer games all my life…where did you see the flag ..tell us
@Paul Hussey: I’ve seen plenty of their supporters wearing union jack shorts, no tops and the standard beer belly. How come they are allowed out of their own homes never mind go to a football match.
Good, pro terrorist chants have no place, especially by people who are supposed to be representing the country
@Ciaran: More of a song really than a simple chant, and a pretty catchy one at that
@Ciaran: It’s very easy to call them terrorists when you haven’t even grown up in a nationalist community in the north. I’m sure your views would be different.
@Ciaran: they are not terrorist the are freedom fighters and without them we would still be under british rule
@Edward Fitzgerald: regardless of when the song was written, the chant is quite obviously associated with the balaclava-toting terrorists of the troubles. And they were terrorists before yet dispute that. Anyone who blows up a car and kills children is a terrorist.
@Edward Fitzgerald: b.lls..it
@Ciaran: Squad should pay fine out of match fee
@Ciaran: it’s not a pro ira song, it’s about graffiti on the wall in Glasgow ffs get a grip. Unionists can sing the billy boys at ni matches and sweet caroline f the pope and nothing done.
@Max Bailey: does that include loyalists dublin monaghan bombings. What about shooting unarmed catholics really have a selective memory
@Mona Murphy: I never said there weren’t terrorists on both sides. I just said that phrase glorifies the IRA terrorists of the troubles. If the England team were stupid enough to sing a song about loyalist terrorists then I’d expect them to be fined as well.
@Max Bailey: Gazza was fined £40,000 by the Scottish Football Association where he infamously mimicked a flute player in a loyalist band during an Old Firm match in 1998.
@Mona Murphy: It was the TEAM that sang it!!!!!! The team represents the country not the supporters!!!! If the Rangers team or Scottish team were filmed singing racist or sectarian songs, they would be fined too!!! The graffiti on the wall supports the “Ra”….. Ye just don’t get it!!!!! Ffs, get a grip yourself!!!!
@Edward Fitzgerald: I assume you’re being ironic.
We were free of British rule a long time before the current IRA was set up.
@Max Bailey: Will we reverse the 100 year partial independence then based on your logic.
@Mona Murphy: No, it’s about a team representing a country who’s organisation fall under the rules of FIFA singing a provocative political song. I have all the love in the world for Irish liberators but in the end had i been born somewhere else with different ideology being drummed into my young mind I’d have a different opinion. There is no place in sport for political and historic hatred. The team in their euphoria made an error. They need to own it.
@Max Bailey: rule Britannia praises 100’s of years of British colonialism, which included genocide by starvation, slavery and countless millions of deaths. Where is the EFA fines as that song regularly sang by their team and supporters
@Ciaran: crawl back under your stone
@Jerriko17: what about all the teams that wear the poppy, and never a word of a fine?
@Max Bailey: what about the black and tans
@Johnny Kelly: you have a urkainian flag as your bio. And slating of Edward. Ireland = urkraine
Russia = Britain. You virtue signalling fo#l.
@Max Bailey: I agree that anyone that’s blows up a car, bus, house etc… is a terrorist. That’s includes these https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/9/uk-army-killed-64-children-in-afghanistan-between-2006-14-report
@Ciaran: freedom fighters
@Seán Ó hAodha: super freedom fighters
Let’s start a go fund me to cover the fine, have it raised in an evening.
@Daniel Murray: na the FAI have enough in the slush fund to cover it, a few if the higher ups will be getting one less bottle of expensive whiskey this Christmas
@Daniel Murray: yeah a go fund me for the fai. Good grief.
Let john delaney pay it.
@Daniel Murray: let the people bail out the Fai , are ya having a laugh?
@Denis Cremin: tax payer has bailed the fai out a few times already.they hardly need another bailout.
@Daniel Murray: *facepalm* people thinking I’m serious but missing the actual point.
@Morgan Crowe: too true aswell
Absolute joke . It’s made how uefa can remain silent on so many things but fine the FAI for this. Soft touches we are.
@Sean Partidge: Agree what’s the problem it’s a Celtic FC song sung by their fans especially at home games.
Absolute joke
Fairplay UEFA i stand behind your decision 100%
yep a joke in my opinion I think fifa should be sorting out there own shop with the corruption that’s still there than fining the ifa because a few young girls got carried away in dressing room
@Tim Herlihy: em, it was UEFA, not FIFA who issued the fine, and the fine was against the FAI not the IFA.
@D. Memery: flip I should concentrate a bit better when writing sorry there
Can we jst set up a go fund me? Or take from the Henry fund….its a song for god sake, and part of our history weather we want to admit that part oflr not… to many cribbing about it with nothing better to do.and the media forced this action.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Just wait for the world cup next year
@Ísla Carabine: In fairness you don’t hear anything but ‘Fields of Athenry’ or ‘COYBIG’ at a packed out mens home international so I can’t imagine a women’s world cup on the other side of the world will have too much of an Old Firm derby to it
Tell them to stick their fines where the sun dont shine refuse to pay point blank
@Edward Fitzgerald: Why…… The team, manager, FAI and all sensible people realised and admitted it was wrong
@Jerriko17: The team manager didn’t know anything about the song
@Peter Murphy: She knew it was totally wrong to sing it and she apologised for her team….. And, I’d say she (rightly so) gave them a bollocking behind closed doors to have put her in that situation when all talk should have been on their fantastic achievement. Just when all she and the team worked for was put in jeopardy, they go and screw it up !!!!!
basic rules of decent conduct don’t apply on 12th of July……just asking….a joke but that’s uefa and fifa in a nutshell
@PW: And who would you fine for the 12th or Paddy’s Day for that matter!!!!…… & 2 wrongs never make a right!!!
@PW: what have those bodies got to do with the 12th of July?
They have little to be doing if that’s all their worried about it’s a sad day when you have to start watching what songs you sing especially when you don’t plan in advance to sing it it’s not like they woke up in the morning and decided if we win today we’ll sing up the ra
@Moya Power-kelly: They won’t be singing it any more!!!!!!
That’s fair.
A small enough fine, but setting down a notice that racist or hate chants won’t be tolerated.
Let’s hope lessons have been learned, not just in the team but within the wider society.
They should have been banned from competing in the world cup the fine is only a slap on the wrist
@Noel Donohue: it’s a pity the journal have removed the dislike tick.
@Noel Donohue: Brit or West Brit?
@Noel Donohue: get a life would you if it was the lads we wouldn’t be having any of this this just jealous the girls did what our lads couldn’t
@Noel Donohue: I beleive you are having a windup here
@Noel Donohue: in that case French national Anthem is about an up rising should they be banned.
What about Qatar and all the dead workers that ok with you. Banning a team for singing a football song.
@Michael Anthony: if we want a United Ireland how do we expect people in the North to be willing to join if the National Team are singing songs about a group that killed over 600 innocent civilians? Don’t give me the whataboutism of the Crown too. We all know.
@Michael Anthony: do you know soccer players back in the past playing the foreign game were called West brits or orange Irish men..now the term.is used against anyone who doesn’t agree with what you think ……Will the ladies sing it again ..??
@Michael Anthony: The famous Irish clan…. “The Anthonys”!!!!!! Whereas Donoghue is a real Irish name!!!!!
@Noel Donohue:
@Jerriko17: angel Michael and saint Anthony .
If all you were around in 1916 or during british occupation. We would have been wiped out. Before 1922 good. After 1922 bad. Free our irish sisters & brothers from apartheid. Free the 6 counties. Ya little beta fairy.
@Michael Anthony: Angel Michael was from heaven???? St Anthony from Italy???? & the patron Saint of “lost things”….. Maybe you should say a few prayers to him to find out where your mind went!!!!
Used to be Ooh, ah, Paul Mcgrath! The worthy one, why change it!
Yet James McClean gets abused every week and nothing is done.
Love to know who’s pocket the €20k will be moved to
I wonder if the Irish national anthem will be on the banned list as it is an original rebel song? Then again most non gaelic speakers haven’t a clue what the words mean.
Ah ya, that’ll pay for one of the corrupt fu#k3rz trips to the World Cup Final… Spoofers the lot
Hypocrites’ the level of stroke’s this crowd has pulled is palpable
It’s grand for FIFA to have the World Cup in Qatar, indirectly causing thousands of deaths and ignoring human rights abuses, but UEFA gets its knickers in a twist over a chant
I’m not very comfortable with the Irish women’s team singing that particular song, because of the the people in both Ireland and Britain that it will offend. However it is no more offensive than “Rule Britannia”.
As expected, it was always gonna happen with the mad hype whipped up. Gas, seeing so many of the serial posters here acting all shocked and outraged.
Pure nonsense,is there any Irish person that never sang songs written by the Wolfe tones
That fine was Worth every single penny. Not too many times you can say that.FIFA are concerned about human decency but wouldn’t allow armband protests on human rights in Iran at the World Cup. What a joke. Now, how much for “rule Britannia”. I would think that upset a lot more people in its time.
F u Uefa. Thats a joke. PC world is going to get worse and worse if we let it!!
Anyone who took part in this appalling chant should be banned from playing for Ireland in future. They are an embarrassment to the country.
@Frank O’Reilly: bit of an overreaction Frank