It could happen…
In an interview with Sky Sports News on Wednesday, former FIFA President Sepp Blatter stated his desire for Ireland host the World Cup in 2030.
Although if we were to do it, we would have to share it with another country (most likely England), it would still be an honour to have the tournament on our doorstep.
But would a World Cup in Ireland work? What would it look like?
Here are the pros and cons to Ireland hosting the World Cup.
Let’s look at the good things first:
We’d actually qualify
The host of a major tournament qualifies automatically, so we wouldn’t have to worry about a bloody qualifying campaign.
No more play-off heartbreaks, no more pointless trips to Georgia. We’d just be there. That would be nice.
Although some might argue that getting there is just as fun as being there itself, but come on, that’s not true.
We would be guaranteed to see Ireland play a World Cup game, that’s enough to convince us as far as we’re concerned.
The craic
We would have some craic, wouldn’t we?
Just imagine it. Imagine Harcourt Street the night of a World Cup semi-final. Chances are Ireland would have been knocked out at this stage, but we wouldn’t mind.
Imagine Dublin after a big Brazil win. There would probably be more Brazilians in the smoking area of Diceys than there would be in Rio de Janeiro.
Packed crowds in Thomond Park, and people of all nationalities flooding the streets of Limerick afterwards.
Isn’t that something we’d like to see? All of the stories about Senegalese fans cleaning up after themselves, or the Mexico fans bringing around a cardboard cutout of their mate – wouldn’t it be great to see all of these different cultures together in Ireland?
We certainly think so.
Imagine we won
Yes we know that if we were to share it with England then the final would probably be in Wembley, but let’s just say we convinced them to have it in Croke Park.
In this world, someone managed to convince the GAA to allow Croker to be used.
Let’s consider it an apology for being cheated out of the World Cup in 2010 (the €5 million pay off wasn’t enough).
Keep your imaginative hat on, and picture a world where we got to the final. We topped an easy group, beat Mexico in the last 16, France in the quarter final (on penalties), hammered Germany in the semis, and have England in the final.
Ireland vs England. World Cup final. In Croke Park.
And we’d definitely win it.
The country would explode. It would be the biggest day in the nation’s proud history. Bigger than the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty, bigger than Johnny Logan winning the Eurovision.
The country’s proudest achievement, in our own backyard. That would be perfect.
The coverage
We can only assume that Eamon Dunphy will be analysing international football for the rest of time, and we’re sure he would have some moments of magic seeing all of the different countries parading through Ireland.
Sure, he might not have a clue what’s going on on the pitch, but his thoughts on what’s happening around him would be absolute gold.
It would consume the nation in absolutely every way, mostly for the better.
Mostly…
Now the bad things…
Traffic
You just know it would happen. We can see the headline now “Peru vs Nigeria delayed 45 minutes due to traffic on the M50”.
It would be bound to happen. Not only that, but can you imagine the complaints?
Non-football fans would spend the entire time ringing into Joe Duffy and moaning about the fact that they had to drop their kids into town, and were stuck behind the Japanese team bus for an hour and a half.
And speaking about non-football fans…
The moans
Or “whinge-bags”, as Brian Kerr would call them.
You know the type, the folk who seem allergic to having fun. They’d find something wrong with the fact that Ireland were hosting the major tournament.
“Don’t we have bigger things to worry about, rather than some sporting event?”
And to those people, we say…
But it would happen. We know it would. And it would really wreck everyone else’s buzz.
The weather
This wouldn’t be an issue for us because we’d be used to it, but you’d have to feel a bit of sympathy for those traveling from the most beautiful, exotic parts of the world, to a rainy Ireland.
We’d probably get one or two days of sun, but it could make for a bit of a mood-killer.
Us being a bit crap
As we said earlier, us going out and battering the big boys of world football would be absolutely brilliant. But that’s a dream world.
The more realistic outcome would be that we go out in the group stages, or the round of 16, if we’re extremely lucky.
But the reality is that we’re not very good at football, and the chances are is that we’d be left going to see games like France vs Portugal in the quarter finals, as we got knocked out weeks ago.
We like the first option more, but this is a hell of a lot more likely .
