A STEP CLOSER TO FULL UEFA MEMBERSHIP FOR GIBRALTAR

One of European football's longest-running sagas may soon be coming to an end, following the 2012 UEFA Executive Committee meeting, which was held in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on 1/10/12. The Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) was - for the second time in its history - granted provisional membership of UEFA at said gathering and will be hopeful of achieving full membership when the UEFA Congress takes place in London next May.

The GFA, which was founded in 1895, first applied for membership of both FIFA and UEFA in the late 1990s; for membership of the former organisation in January 1997 and for the latter two years later. After the GFA's original request was received by both UEFA and FIFA, the Spanish government and the country's footballing authority, the RFEF (Real Federación Española de Fútbol) began raising merry hell, and eventually persuaded both international governing bodies to change their statutes in 2001 to the effect that only independent countries which were recognised by the United Nations were eligible for membership, thus excluding Gibraltar. 

The RFEF and the Spanish government reasoned that if Gibraltar were to be granted full membership of FIFA and UEFA, then Catalonia and Euskara (the Basque Country) would, at sometime in the future, also be welcomed into the fold. Neither the Spanish government nor the RFEF found this to be palatable, so they approached both FIFA and UEFA to try and head the GFA off at the pass.

The GFA went to the CAS in 2002, who more or less found in their favour. They made another attempt at achieving UEFA and FIFA membership via the CAS, who found in the GFA's favour in 2006, by informing UEFA that the Gibraltarian football authorities had submitted their original application before both UEFA and FIFA changed their statutes, and instructed UEFA to grant the GFA provisional membership.

Full membership was to then be discussed at the 2007 UEFA Congress which was to be held in the German city of Düsseldorf in January of that year. In the run-up to the 2007 UEFA Congress, the Spanish government claimed that Gibraltar's 3000-capacity Victoria Stadium lay on "disputed" land close to the border between Spain and the British territory. 

This rather contradicted the Spanish government's position on the sovereignity of the Rock; did this mean that there was no dispute of the UK's possession of the rest of Gibraltar? (After all, the United Kingdom's occupation, conquest and permanent possession of Gibraltar in 1704 was accepted by Spain, who did so by way of signing the Treaty of Utrecht, which was signed in 1713.) Gibraltar's Panorama website claimed in 2006 that the then Spanish ambassador to Belgrade visited the Serbian football authorities to lobby for their vote at the 2007 UEFA Congress.

The 2007 UEFA Congress in January 2007 debated not only Gibraltar's acceding to full membership, but also whether Montenegro be granted full membership. That was done and dusted in unanimous fashion. Gibraltar, however, saw their membership application turned down in emphatic fashion; 45 UEFA member associations voted against, with only 3 voting to accept Gibraltar into the UEFA family. Four member associations abstained. The GFA president at the time, Joe Nunez, was scathing at the outcome of the vote.

Many observers have tried to figure out who voted for and against Gibraltar's membership application, but no-one seems to know for sure, certainly not yours truly. It has been claimed that England did not vote in favour, but Steve Menary's book "Outcasts! The Lands That FIFA Forgot" featured Gibraltar's travails and stated that England, Scotland and Wales voted for Gibraltar's inclusion. 

As mentioned before in the annals of this blog, Northern Ireland did not do likewise, and this may have been in part because Northern Ireland were in the same Euro 2008 qualifying group as Spain. It may also have been because IFA president Jim Boyce had his eye on a seat at FIFA's top-table, something Boyce eventually achieved in 2011. Who abstained, though? Were the IFA and the Fotbollsamband Foroya among them, perchance? After all, the FSF, like the GFA, were members of the IGA (Island Games Association) before they joined UEFA. Who knows?
Five years later, following the UEFA Executive Committee's decision to grant the GFA provisional membership last week, the GFA issued the following press-release:

"The Gibraltar FA is pleased to announce that it has today been granted provisional membership of UEFA at a meeting of the European football governing body's Executive Committee in St.Petersburg, Russia."

The vote on the Gibraltar FA's full membership of UEFA will take place on the 24th May 2013 during the XXXVII Congress to be held in London, England."

The Gibraltar FA thanks the UEFA Executive Committee and reiterates its steadfast commitment to working with UEFA on the "roadmap" towards full membership and to building relationships with the 53 fellow member associations." 

UEFA, meanwhile, shoved the news of the GFA's becoming a provisional member of the organisation towards the bottom of a press-release detailing its Executive Committee's ratification of the regulations covering the 2013-15 UEFA Under 21-Championship and the European qualifiers for the 2015 Women's World Cup, and the updating of the UEFA Referees' Convention, amongst other things. This is what they had to say - in somewhat cursory fashion - on the question of the Gibraltar FA's application for full membership:

"The committee has admitted Gibraltar as a provisional member of UEFA as from today, 1 October 2012. This follows a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in August 2011. A decision on the admission of the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) as a full member of UEFA will be taken by the XXXVII Ordinary UEFA Congress in London in May 2013."

The Spanish newspaper El País reported the day after the UEFA Executive Committee's decision that the country's Minister of Education, Culture and Sport, José Ignacio Wert, stated in an interview broadcast on the Telemadrid television station that he did not expect that the Gibraltar Football Association would become a full member of UEFA, and that his ministry and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs would "exhaust all legal means" to ensure that the GFA's application would fail.

Wert did not explain what these "legal means" would entail, saying only that that would "be inconsistent with the strategy" currently being followed by the Spanish government. He also said that "The Spanish position is well-known [and] Spain has not been heard and Spain is a relevant part."

The question is: Just what will the Spanish government and the RFEF do to try and halt the GFA's application for membership in its tracks? Last time out, the RFEF threatened to leave UEFA, and there was a lot of lobbying for the votes of the other UEFA member states, not to mention the alleged dropping-in of the Spanish ambassador to the Serbian FA HQ.

This time round, just as in 2007, it will be hard for the Spanish FA to leave UEFA, should the GFA be accepted as a member association, of course. (Maybe much harder, thanks to the current economic situation.) If they were to do so, clubs such as Real Madrid and Barcelona would lose out on UEFA prize-money as a result of their regular participation in the Champions League. Spanish clubs - and the national team - would be barred from entering international competition. 

If the GFA had been accepted in 2007, dear reader, do you really think that the RFEF would have upped sticks and disappeared off the UEFA radar? Think about it; there would have been no European Championship triumphs for Spain in 2008 or 2012, nor a successful World Cup campaign in 2010. The names of neither Barcelona, Real Madrid nor Atlético Madrid would have appeared on the European club competitions honours-lists after 2007. Hundreds of millions of Euros' worth of prize and participation money earned from international competition would have been lost. The history of world football would have become a different thing than what we now know it as being.

Fast forward, then, to June 2013, and imagine, first of all, that the GFA's application for UEFA membership had been turned down. The status quo would remain, although the reputations of UEFA, the Spanish FA and the Spanish government would be tarnished. Severely. They might not care, but the fallacy of Michel Platini's stated intention to help out the smaller nations in European football would have been confirmed, once and for all. (What of an open draw in both European club competitions from the very start, Michel? What of the traditional two-legged format all the way through instead of the fatally-flawed group stages? What of a more equitable distribution of the prize-money on offer for both competitions?)

However, imagine that the GFA's application for UEFA membership had been accepted and the RFEF then decided to leave UEFA. All Spanish clubs, and the national side, would instantly be thrown out of all international competitions. There would be no more technical assistance or financial assistance/handouts from UEFA. The level of football in Spain would suffer.

The Spanish economy is currently in a desperate situation, and there is no sign of a miracle taking place any time in the next 7 to 8 months that would enable things to turn it round. The banks are currently being held up by the European Central Bank and the EU. Spanish football clubs are, at least in part, still being helped along by the Spanish banking-system. If that were to utterly collapse, then Spanish football would have nowhere to turn, and the monies gained by participation in UEFA competition in former years would have long disappeared. The star turns currently appearing in La Liga would be high-tailing it out of town. Clubs would fold and many jobs - in all sorts of sectors - would be lost, and perhaps not only in Spain. Does anybody think that any of this would be in the best interests of Spanish, European or world football or, indeed, Spain itself? 

Also, calls have been increasing for independence for Catalonia - home, of course, to Barcelona Football Club - which is Spain's richest region and which accounts for some 20% of Spain's national GDP. The state of Spain's economy and the possibility of Catalonia breaking away from Spain is something which should be worrying the average Spaniard more than whether Gibraltar achieves full membership of UEFA.

Sure, the RFEF could always join one of the other continental organisations, but there are pitfalls here, too. The OFC, which covers the Pacific nations, would be too small, too far away and not competitive enough. The AFC, the Asian organisation, might be a better option, but many of the member nations are poverty-stricken and their teams would not be able to afford to travel to Europe for an away game in an Asian Cup qualifier, for instance. Ticket-prices would be drastically hiked should Spain come to town. 

The same situation would apply should Spain apply to join the CAF; it is already enough of a strain for many African national associations to take part in African competition, although Spain would find the level of competition to be higher than in Asia.

CONMEBOL or CONCACAF would perhaps be the best two options for Spain; distance and cost would, however, be a problem, especially for the smaller, and poorer, CONCACAF countries, not to mention ticket-prices.

All of this is, of course, merely hypothetical; your correspondent does not have a crystal-ball, but at least one or two of the above scenarios might, just might, come to pass. 

Back to the present; Pat's Football Blog has attemped to contact the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport for a reaction to the UEFA Executive Committee's decision, though no reply has yet been received. Last year, a similar request was sent to all sides involved (including FIFA) when it became known that the Executive Committee would be discussing the matter; no response was forthcoming then, either. 

The Spanish government's position on Gibraltar is somewhat hypocritical when one considers that the country counts two very small pieces of mainland North Africa as part of its sovereign territory - Ceuta and Melilla, situated on the northern coast of Morocco, and was also not so long ago in dispute with Morocco over the uninhabited Parsley Islands, which also lie of Morocco's northern coast. 

Spanish football might not gain much if Gibraltar were to be accepted into the UEFA fold, but the RFEF and the Spanish government are appearing rather small by sticking to their present position on the matter. The Gibraltar FA's position has always been clear; they are interested in joining UEFA to help lift the standard of football in the British overseas territory, and for their teams to play football against opponents from other countries on a regular basis. Rubbing the Spanish government's face in it is not, it would seem, part of their master-plan. 

Many people who have followed this story ask why it is that the Faroe Islands are able to compete in UEFA and FIFA-sanctioned competition, whilst Gibraltar remain excluded. The Faroes joined FIFA in 1998 and UEFA in 1990, seven years before the question of Gibraltar - and the still more unfortunate GBU (Grønlands Boldspil-Union - the Greenland FA - also known in Inuit as the Kalaallit Nunaanni Isikkamik Arsaattartut Kattuffiat), whose attempts at obtaining membership floundered but were fobbed off by FIFA who helped fund an artificial pitch at Qaqartoq in southern Greenland, which opened for business in 2009 - applying for membership ever came up. The Faroe Islands and Greenland are both self-governing entities within the Kingdom of Denmark.

UEFA's current mantra is "Respect." It is high time that they, the Spanish government and the RFEF started showing some to the football-lovers of Gibraltar - in fact, more than one Gibratarian sporting body, from badminton to athletics to ten-pin bowling, could claim that their Spanish counterparts have been less than decent towards them in the past. Should the GFA be admitted to UEFA, if push comes to shove, Spain could ask UEFA to ensure that La Roja be kept apart from Gibraltar in any future European Championship or World Cup qualifying draw. No Gibraltarian club would be likely to qualify for the Champions League, for a number of years, at least, so that should help keep the collective Spanish brow sweat-free as well.

One should ask the Spanish government and the RFEF: is the whole brouhaha really about politics (it certainly doesn't seem to be about football), or just all about losing face, because that already happened more than five years ago? The current position of both bodies certainly doesn't appear to be concerned with matters of a sporting nature. It should be. Both the Spanish government and the RFEF will have to realise that, thanks to - amongst other things - the rise of the social media, this matter will not just disappear overnight, as they thought it would after the UEFA Congress vote in 2007. 

It would be a pity if the GFA's attempts to gain full membership of FIFA were to be, once again, blown out of the water. By the way, one irony of the situation involving the RFEF, the Spanish government, UEFA and the GFA is that Barcelona and Real Madrid are the two most popular clubs in Gibraltar. Who would have thought it?

Those who have tried to improve the status of the GFA, not just locally but internationally, such as Adolfo Ramirez, who helped kick-start the whole process back in the late 1990s, through Joseph Nunez, who, in some quarters, was scandalously and unfairly blamed for wasting the GFA's financial resources by taking the association's case to the CAS in 2006 (and for the subsequent failure to have the GFA admitted to UEFA), to the current administration, including the Gibraltar team manager Allen Bula, who, by all accounts, has remained steadfast and dignified, deserve to have the Gibraltar Football Association finally embraced by UEFA as part of its family. 

Will UEFA and its member associations finally show a little courage and admit the Gibraltar Football Association as the organisation's 54th member (and, perish the thought, sometime in the near future, finally admit the GBU as its 55th)? That decision will be made in May next year; it would be more than unseemly if that were not to happen. It would lay bare to ridicule Michel Platini's claims that the organisation is there for every footballing body in Europe, no matter how large, no matter how small. More than that; any decision other than to award full membership status to the Gibraltar Football Association would be inexcusable. The world is watching. And waiting.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: A short reply was received, the day after the above article was published, from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport stating their opposition to the Gibraltar Football Association obtaining provisional UEFA membership, and confirmed that "Spain is going to resort to the courts."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Any errors, chronological or otherwise, are made in good faith and are the author's and the author's alone. They shall, as always, be corrected upon receipt of request to do so. 

Link to UEFA article regarding the UEFA Executive Committee's meeting in Saint Petersburg:

http://www.uefa.com/uefa/aboutuefa/organisation/executivecommittee/news/newsid=1868892.html

Link to UEFA press-release containing statement on its admittance of the Gibraltar FA as a provisional member of the organisation:

http://www.uefa.com/uefa/mediaservices/mediareleases/newsid=1868845.html

FOOTBALL'S TWILIGHT ZONES: MARSHALL ISLANDS (ABRIDGED VERSION)

From time to time, an eminent historian or geographer will appear on our television screens to discuss the Amazon region of Brazil and its position as being one of the world's "last unmapped areas." In football terms, there are few such places left; Pat's Football Blog has, in the past, featured articles on football in some unexpected places, such as Tristan da Cunha, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon and Saint Helena.

There are, of course, many other locations less well-known to the average football fan, but if there are no more "unmapped areas" in world football, there are still some places which constitute the beautiful game's very own "twilight zone," where football has yet to gain a foothold or has been and gone, seemingly never to return, and many of these - Nauru, Tokelau and Wallis and Futuna, among others - are to be found among the scattered island nations of the Pacific Ocean.

News and results from such places bring football statisticians the world over to a collective state of frenzy bordering on the mega-orgasmic, and discussions on anti-social media and forums abound over statistical and historical happenings from places both isolated and obscure.

Maybe the nation best-placed to earn the dubious distinction of being "football's twilight zone" - and one which fascinates football statisticians no end, at the moment, at any rate - is the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a former Pacific Trust Territory governed by the United States until it gained full independence in 1986. The islands, situated to the south-east of the Philippines, Guam and Palau, cover an immense surface area of the Pacific Ocean, but have a land-mass area of some 70 square miles and, according to a 2009 UN esimate, a population of around 68000 people.

Very few sovereign nations are not members of FIFA; among these are Nauru, Kiribati, Monaco, Vatican City, Tuvalu (although this may well change in the near future), the Federated States of Micronesia (whose FA is in the process of submitting a bid to join FIFA) and the Marshall Islands. The Marshalls are the only one out of these countries never to have had a national football association, and have also never had a national football team.

However, if it were up to a young man called Connor Pezzaioli, the Marshall Islands would have one tomorrow. Pezzaioli, who hails from Staffordshire in the UK, has been spearheading a thus far little-known campaign on Facebook entitled Give the Marshall Islands a league and National Team, and, as part of the campaign, also recently produced a short but very interesting document entitled Proposals on Football in the Marshall Islands.

The islands are spread over a vast area of the Pacific Ocean, so a truly national league would be nigh on impossible to organise. Pezzaioli's document proposes the setting-up of a football league on the atoll of Majuro, where the nation's capital is based. The league would comprise of 6 teams, representing various villages on Majuro, which has a population of 30000. The member teams of the Majuro Amateur Soccer League would be: Ajeltake, Delap, Djarrit, Laura, Rairok and Uliga, and games would take place at the Majuro Sports Stadium.

The atoll of Kwajalein would also have a football league of its own, involving at least two teams from Kwajalein island and the nearby island of Ebeye. There is at least one football pitch on Kwajalein, which houses the US Army's Reagan Test Site and is home to some 2000 people.

Other proposals include women's leagues on Majuro and Kwajalein, youth leagues on both of these islands and also on Ebeye, and the appointment or match officials, transfer regulations and the setting-up of a Marshall Islands FA are also covered in the document.

Your correspondent has attempted to contact various sporting, civil and governmental bodies in the Marshall Islands during recent months to ascertain the state of football in the Marshalls, but responses have not exactly been forthcoming. However, a reply was very recently received from Amy Sasser, representing the Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee, who said: "As far as the Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee is aware and concerned, there is no organized football (soccer) in the Marshall Islands at any level."

Ms. Sasser mentioned that "there is no athletics stadium in the Marshall Islands." She also stated that football is not very popular in the islands, and went on to say that "the most popular team sports are basketball and volleyball."

Harking back to Connor Pezzaioli's document for a moment, there does not seem to be a sports stadium as such on Majuro Atoll, but, if satellite images are to believed, there does appear to be a running-track of sorts in Laura at the western edge of Majuro, although whether it is large enough to accommodate a football pitch seems doubtful - if said "structure" is actually a running-track. Having said that, there seems to be ample space in the vicinity to enlarge the "track" to a proper size, and also create enough space within for a football pitch.

In "downtown" Majuro (which is spread over several islands at the eastern side of Majuro Atoll), there is an indoor stadium, the ECC (Educational Cultural Center), used principally for basketball and volleyball, which would surely be large enough to host five-a-side/Futsal matches. Majuro's population is squeezed together on a landmass with a surface area covering less than 4 square miles, though the area around Laura is comparatively sparsely populated.

Ms. Sasser was also asked about football on Kwajalein, and she had this to say: "It has been suggested that there may have at one time been a soccer program on Kwajalein Atoll (the only atoll that might have sufficient land mass to accommodate a soccer field), but despite numerous attempts, we have been unable to confirm this or obtain any contact information. Soccer is not played anywhere else in the Marshall Islands due to lack of playing space and equipment."

Kwajalein does have at least one football pitch, Brandon Field, which is in the grounds of Kwajalein High School, and it appears to be used - or appears to have been used - for local football league competition in which the Spartans club, affilliated to the high school, has regularly taken part (in both men's and women's competition).

The following quote, taken from the book Diseases of Globalisation: Socioeconomic Transitions and Health, written by Christine McMurray and Roy Hugh Smith, and published back in 2001, seems to back up Ms. Sasser's assertion: "To the casual observer there appear [sic] to be few sources of entertainment, especially for young people. Outdoors, as in most countries, children play around the houses and in the street. School-age children and adolescents play volleyball and basketball wherever they can find a space, but in Majuro and Ebeye there are few spaces large enough to support games such as baseball, soccer or even an athletics track, and generally provision is not made for such sports." Things don't seem to changed much.

Judging by satellite images of the islands, Amy Sasser certainly has a point regarding the lack of playing space in the islands, but more on that anon. Back to footballing matters Kwajalein now, and the island certainly does have a competitive footballing history all of its own.

According to the RSSSF's entry on the Marshall Islands on the football statistics organisation's website, a football competition first took place on Kwajalein in 1967, and was won by a team called Shamrock Rovers. Available statistical information can be obtained via the link at the end of this article.

It has been reported in dispatches that teams from Ebeye have travelled the short distance by boat to Kwajalein to participate in their league competition; referring to Connor Pezzaioli's suggestion that women's leagues be set up in both Ebeye and Kwajalein, both men's and women's teams have, at times, represented Ebeye in Kwaj competitions for both sexes down the years. Two such teams, both apparently linked to schools on Ebeye, are Queen of Peace and Calvary.

On Ebeye itself, conditions on the ground couldn't be more different than on Kwajalein. Ebeye has a dark recent history. It also has a population of between 11000-13000 people, squeezed on to a tiny speck of land no more than 80 acres in size, earning it the unfortunate title of "the slum of the Pacific." Around 1000 of Ebeye's inhabitants work on Kwajalein. Very few Marshallese now live on Kwajalein; those who do are married to US nationals.

Most of the Ebeye's population are not native Ebeyans; many of them originally re-settled from Kwajalein Island, which was used as a supply base for nuclear tests which were carried out at Bikini Atoll and Enewetak Atoll in the years after World War II (until 1958), and other islands within Kwajalein atoll. A large number of those now residing on Ebeye came from Rongelap Atoll (near Bikini Atoll) and have suffered from the effects of radiation sickness.

In recent years, many inhabitants of other, outlying, locations within the Marshall Islands have also migrated to Ebeye in the hope of finding work at the US base on Kwajalein. As a result, the island's population has been suffering from severe overcrowding, poor sanitation facilities, power-cuts and water shortages, as well as occasional outbreaks of dengue fever, tuberculosis and even cholera.

The plight of Ebeye's residents was detailed in a television documentary called Collateral Damage, part of the Unnatural Causes series which was aired on America's Public Broadcasting Service in 2009.

There are a couple of small basketball courts on Ebeye but, as alluded to in McMurray and Smith's report from 2001, room for virtually no other form of sporting recreation, volleyball and swimming excepted. Apart from those who travel to work at the Reagan Test Site, access to Kwajalein is very restricted for citizens of the Marshall Islands, including those who want to play football at Brandon Field. Although physical recreation is good for the body and for the soul, until the various problems haunting Ebeye Island and its inhabitants are resolved, football will have to take a back seat.

As for the rest of the islands and atolls which constitute the Republic of the Marshall Islands, there are only a few with a permanent population of more than 1000 people, and the country as a whole is scattered over a wide area. Including its landmass, internal territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, the territory of the Marshall Islands covers an area of almost 2 million square kilometres.

In the Marshall Islands, a group of islands with a small population, a tiny, scattered, land area and a rather low GDP per capita of just over US$3000 in 2010 (at the current rate of US$), getting around is expensive and time-consuming. An inter-island league is definitely not a viable option, although if the Marshall Islands authorities can utilise the limited space they have on Majuro and build a sports complex encompassing a full-size athletics track, it will benefit a great many sports, not just football. Such a complex would not necessarily have to cover a great deal of land, and would compliment the ECC, the roof of which partially collapsed last year (it is unclear as to whether it has now been repaired).

Although Connor Pezzaioli's document does not address the above issues, it does represent a first step in, at the very least, a proper discussion over the issue of properly organising football in the Marshall Islands, and also sets out, for the most part, a potentially viable structure for football in the country; money, space and interested locals allowing, of course.

The Marshall Islands do not seem to be on FIFA's radar, but it could be somewhere where the NF-Board (the non-FIFA global football federation), in conjunction with the Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee, might be interested in assisting with the creation of a local footballing community. Whoever eventually decides to help get the ball rolling (as it were), the discussions about football in that particular region of the Pacific Ocean are far from over. In contrast, perhaps they are only now getting started.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Much of the information contained in the above article came from sources such as Connor Pezzaioli's Proposals on Football in the Marshall Islands, and also (to a small extent) from Wikipedia.

Link to the transcript for Collateral Damage, episode 6 of the Unnatural Causes series:

http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/assets/uploads/file/UC_Transcript_6.pdf

Link to page 134 of Diseases of Globalisation: Socioeconomic Tranisitions and Health (2001), Christine McMurray and Roy Hugh Smith:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VBfj_ekhhHsC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=Diseases+of+Globalisation:+Socioeconomic+Transitions+and+Health+soccer+marshall+islands&source=bl&ots=7v-iTCXcvZ&sig=Vl8aD_jmpF8kzQN5XqSjnqM2Krg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BvQ7UJHjKKqj0QX274CwCg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Diseases%20of%20Globalisation%3A%20Socioeconomic%20Transitions%20and%20Health%20soccer%20marshall%20islands&f=false

The following link to the RSSSF website is the starting-point to their records of football in the Marshall Islands and on Kwajalein:

http://www.rsssf.com/tablesm/marsh67.html

Many and sincere thanks to Connor Pezzaioli for his allowing the dissection of his fine document; may his efforts bear some fruit! Also, grateful thanks and appreciation are due to Amy Sasser from the Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee for her input. To find out more about Pezzaioli's campaign, please go to the Give the Marshall Islands a league and National Team page on Facebook.

Kindly note that the above article has been slightly edited as a result of copyright concerns regarding information on football on Kwajalein. Apologies to one and all for the withdrawal of the original article, but, as and when the copyright situation is sorted out, the full article will be published, hopefully in the not too distant future. (A lesson to plagiarists everywhere!)

FOOTBALL'S TWILIGHT ZONES: MARSHALL ISLANDS (FULL VERSION)

From time to time, an eminent historian or geographer will appear on our television screens to discuss the Amazon region of Brazil and its position as being one of the world's "last unmapped areas." In football terms, there are few such places left; Pat's Football Blog has, in the past, featured articles on football in some unexpected places, such as Tristan da Cunha, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon and Saint Helena.

There are, of course, many other locations less well-known to the average football fan, but if there are no more "unmapped areas" in world football, there are still some places which constitute the beautiful game's very own "twilight zone," where football has yet to gain a foothold or has been and gone, seemingly never to return, and many of these - Nauru, Tokelau and Wallis and Futuna, among others - are to be found among the scattered island nations of the Pacific Ocean.

News and results from such places bring football statisticians the world over to a collective state of frenzy bordering on the mega-orgasmic, and discussions on anti-social media and forums abound over statistical and historical happenings from places both isolated and obscure.

Maybe the nation best-placed to earn the dubious distinction of being "football's twilight zone" - and one which fascinates football statisticians no end, at the moment, at any rate - is the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a former Pacific Trust Territory governed by the United States until it gained full independence in 1986. The islands, situated to the south-east of the Philippines, Guam and Palau, cover an immense surface area of the Pacific Ocean, but have a land-mass area of some 70 square miles and, according to a 2009 UN esimate, a population of around 68000 people.

Very few sovereign nations are not members of FIFA; among these are Nauru, Kiribati, Monaco, Vatican City, Tuvalu (although this may well change in the near future), the Federated States of Micronesia (whose FA is in the process of submitting a bid to join FIFA) and the Marshall Islands. The Marshalls are the only one out of these countries never to have had a national football association, and have also never had a national football team.

However, if it were up to a young man called Connor Pezzaioli, the Marshall Islands would have one tomorrow. Pezzaioli, who hails from Staffordshire in the UK, has been spearheading a thus far little-known campaign on Facebook entitled Give the Marshall Islands a league and National Team, and, as part of the campaign, also recently produced a short but very interesting document entitled Proposals on Football in the Marshall Islands.

The islands are spread over a vast area of the Pacific Ocean, so a truly national league would be nigh on impossible to organise. Pezzaioli's document proposes the setting-up of a football league on the atoll of Majuro, where the nation's capital is based. The league would comprise of 6 teams, representing various villages on Majuro, which has a population of 30000. The member teams of the Majuro Amateur Soccer League would be: Ajeltake, Delap, Djarrit, Laura, Rairok and Uliga, and games would take place at the Majuro Sports Stadium.

The atoll of Kwajalein would also have a football league of its own, involving at least two teams from Kwajalein island and the nearby island of Ebeye. There is at least one football pitch on Kwajalein, which houses the US Army's Reagan Test Site and is home to some 2000 people.

Other proposals include women's leagues on Majuro and Kwajalein, youth leagues on both of these islands and also on Ebeye, and the appointment or match officials, transfer regulations and the setting-up of a Marshall Islands FA are also covered in the document.

Your correspondent has attempted to contact various sporting, civil and governmental bodies in the Marshall Islands during recent months to ascertain the state of football in the Marshalls, but responses have not exactly been forthcoming. However, a reply was very recently received from Amy Sasser, representing the Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee, who said: "As far as the Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee is aware and concerned, there is no organized football (soccer) in the Marshall Islands at any level."

Ms. Sasser mentioned that "there is no athletics stadium in the Marshall Islands." She also stated that football is not very popular in the islands, and went on to say that "the most popular team sports are basketball and volleyball."

Harking back to Connor Pezzaioli's document for a moment, there does not seem to be a sports stadium as such on Majuro Atoll, but, if satellite images are to believed, there does appear to be a running-track of sorts in Laura at the western edge of Majuro, although whether it is large enough to accommodate a football pitch seems doubtful - if said "structure" actually is a running-track. Having said that, there seems to be ample space in the vicinity to enlarge the "track" to a proper size, and also create enough space within for a football pitch.

In "downtown" Majuro (which is spread over several islands at the eastern side of Majuro Atoll), there is an indoor stadium, the ECC (Educational Cultural Center), used principally for basketball and volleyball, which would surely be large enough to host five-a-side/Futsal matches. Majuro's population is squeezed together on a landmass with a surface area covering less than 4 square miles, though the area around Laura is comparatively sparsely populated.

Ms. Sasser was also asked about football on Kwajalein, and she had this to say: "It has been suggested that there may have at one time been a soccer program on Kwajalein Atoll (the only atoll that might have sufficient land mass to accommodate a soccer field), but despite numerous attempts, we have been unable to confirm this or obtain any contact information. Soccer is not played anywhere else in the Marshall Islands due to lack of playing space and equipment."

Kwajalein does have at least one football pitch, Brandon Field, which is in the grounds of Kwajalein High School, and it appears to be used - or appears to have been used - for local football league competition in which the Spartans club, affilliated to the high school, has regularly taken part (in both men's and women's competition).

The following quote, taken from the book Diseases of Globalisation: Socioeconomic Transitions and Health, written by Christine McMurray and Roy Hugh Smith, and published back in 2001, seems to back up Ms. Sasser's assertion: "To the casual observer there appear [sic] to be few sources of entertainment, especially for young people. Outdoors, as in most countries, children play around the houses and in the street. School-age children and adolescents play volleyball and basketball wherever they can find a space, but in Majuro and Ebeye there are few spaces large enough to support games such as baseball, soccer or even an athletics track, and generally provision is not made for such sports." Things don't seem to changed much.

Judging by satellite images of the islands, Amy Sasser certainly has a point regarding the lack of playing space in the islands, but more on that anon. Back to footballing matters Kwajalein now, and the island certainly does have a competitive footballing history all of its own.

According to the RSSSF's entry on the Marshall Islands on the football statistics organisation's website, a football competition first took place on Kwajalein in 1967, and was won by a team called Shamrock Rovers. The next competition was listed as taking place in 1998, when Star Motion won Kwaj's Division B. Slow Motion won the island league in 1999, followed by Kobeer in 2000.

A team called Majuro All-Stars reportedly also took part in the 2000 Kwajalein league competition. It was also mentioned on the RSSSF document that a tournament took place in Majuro in 2009, and that it "featured many local teams." In any event, an article in the Kwajalein newsletter Hourglass from late September 2009 featured the end of that year's tournament on the island, and mentioned that Majuro All-Stars comprised of players from several countries, and that "the soccer club plays every Wednesday night indoors and Saturday night outdoors."

Another interesting development alluded to in the aforementioned issue of Hourglass was that there was a "federation meeting" during the Kwajalein tournament aimed at perhaps sending a Marshall Islands team to the Micronesian Games, something which has not yet materialised, like a proper governing body for football in the Marshalls. The article included a reference to a sports field on Majuro which "includes a concrete path through the center [sic] of it." During the same weekend, a Kwajalein All-Stars team reportedly defeated their counterparts from Majuro by 5 goals to 3.

It has been reported in dispatches that teams from Ebeye have travelled the short distance by boat to Kwajalein to participate in their league competition; referring to Connor Pezzaioli's suggestion that women's leagues be set up in both Ebeye and Kwajalein, both men's and women's teams have, at times, represented Ebeye in Kwaj competitions for both sexes down the years. Two such teams, both apparently linked to schools on Ebeye, are Queen of Peace and Calvary.

On Ebeye itself, conditions on the ground couldn't be more different than on Kwajalein. Ebeye has a dark recent history. It also has a population of between 11000-13000 people, squeezed on to a tiny speck of land no more than 80 acres in size, earning it the unfortunate title of "the slum of the Pacific." Around 1000 of Ebeye's inhabitants work on Kwajalein. Very few Marshallese now live on Kwajalein; those who do are married to US nationals.

Most of the Ebeye's population are not native Ebeyans; many of them originally re-settled from Kwajalein Island, which was used as a supply base for nuclear tests which were carried out at Bikini Atoll and Enewetak Atoll in the years after World War II (until 1958), and other islands within Kwajalein atoll. A large number of those now residing on Ebeye came from Rongelap Atoll (near Bikini Atoll) and have suffered from the effects of radiation sickness. 

In recent years, many inhabitants of other, outlying, locations within the Marshall Islands have also migrated to Ebeye in the hope of finding work at the US base on Kwajalein. As a result, the island's population has been suffering from severe overcrowding, poor sanitation facilities, power-cuts and water shortages, as well as occasional outbreaks of dengue fever, tuberculosis and even cholera. 

The plight of Ebeye's residents was detailed in a television documentary called Collateral Damage, part of the Unnatural Causes series which was aired on America's Public Broadcasting Service in 2009.

There are a couple of small basketball courts on Ebeye but, as alluded to in McMurray and Smith's report from 2001, room for virtually no other form of sporting recreation, volleyball and swimming excepted. Apart from those who travel to work at the Reagan Test Site, access to Kwajalein is very restricted for citizens of the Marshall Islands, including those who want to play football at Brandon Field. Although physical recreation is good for the body and for the soul, until the various problems haunting Ebeye Island and its inhabitants are resolved, football will have to take a back seat.

As for the rest of the islands and atolls which constitute the Republic of the Marshall Islands, there are only a few with a permanent population of more than 1000 people, and the country as a whole is scattered over a wide area. Including its landmass, internal territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, the territory of the Marshall Islands covers an area of almost 2 million square kilometres.

In the Marshall Islands, a group of islands with a small population, a tiny, scattered, land area and a rather low GDP per capita of just over US$3000 in 2010 (at the current rate of US$), getting around is expensive and time-consuming. An inter-island league is definitely not a viable option, although if the Marshall Islands authorities can utilise the limited space they have on Majuro and build a sports complex encompassing a full-size athletics track, it will benefit a great many sports, not just football. Such a complex would not necessarily have to cover a great deal of land, and would compliment the ECC, the roof of which partially collapsed last year (it is unclear as to whether it has now been repaired).

Although Connor Pezzaioli's document does not address the above issues, it does represent a first step in, at the very least, a proper discussion over the issue of properly organising football in the Marshall Islands, and also sets out, for the most part, a potentially viable structure for football in the country; money, space and interested locals allowing, of course.

The Marshall Islands do not seem to be on FIFA's radar, but it could be somewhere where the NF-Board (the non-FIFA global football federation), in conjunction with the Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee, might be interested in assisting with the creation of a local footballing community. Whoever eventually decides to help get the ball rolling (as it were), the discussions about football in that particular region of the Pacific Ocean are far from over. In contrast, perhaps they are only now getting started.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Much of the information contained in the above article came from sources such as Connor Pezzaioli's Proposals on Football in the Marshall Islands, Hourglass and also (to a small extent) from Wikipedia.

Link to the transcript for Collateral Damage, episode 6 of the Unnatural Causes series:

http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/assets/uploads/file/UC_Transcript_6.pdf

Link to page 134 of Diseases of Globalisation: Socioeconomic Tranisitions and Health (2001), Christine McMurray and Roy Hugh Smith:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VBfj_ekhhHsC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=Diseases+of+Globalisation:+Socioeconomic+Transitions+and+Health+soccer+marshall+islands&source=bl&ots=7v-iTCXcvZ&sig=Vl8aD_jmpF8kzQN5XqSjnqM2Krg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BvQ7UJHjKKqj0QX274CwCg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Diseases%20of%20Globalisation%3A%20Socioeconomic%20Transitions%20and%20Health%20soccer%20marshall%20islands&f=false

The following link to the RSSSF website is the starting-point to their records of football in the Marshall Islands and on Kwajalein:

http://www.rsssf.com/tablesm/marsh67.html

Many and sincere thanks to Connor Pezzaioli for his allowing the dissection of his fine document; may his efforts bear some fruit! Also, grateful thanks and appreciation are due to Amy Sasser from the Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee for her input. To find out more about Pezzaioli's campaign, please go to the Give the Marshall Islands a league and National Team page on Facebook.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: PALAU 2012 SPRING SEASON - THE STATS

Palau's 2012 Spring League reached its conclusion in April, when Team Bangladesh defeated Taj in the play-off final. The squad-lists were recently made available (many thanks to Palau FA's Charles Reklai Mitchell for his assistance); please find them below along with the season's results. Kindly note that some of the players have dual nationalities, and that the Taj squad-list seems to consist of first-names and nicknames only.

RESULTS

REGULAR SEASON

11/3/12 Kramers FC 3:4 Biib Strykers
11/3/12 Taj 7: 0 Belau Kanu Club
18/3/12 Team Bangladesh 5:2 Belau Kanu Club
18/3/12 Biib Strykers 1:3 Taj
25/3/12 Kramers FC 4:5 Team Bangladesh
25/3/12 Biib Strykers 3:1 Belau Kanu Club
1/4/12   Team Bangladesh 7:2 Biib Strykers
1/4/12   Kramers FC 3:0 Taj
8/4/12   Kramers FC 3:2 Belau Kanu Club
8/4/12   Team Bangladesh 1:2 Taj

TEAM/P/W/D/L/GF/GA/PTS/GD

TEAM BANGLADESH/4/3/0/1/18/9/9/+9
TAJ/4/3/0/1/12/5/9/+5
KRAMERS FC/4/2/0/2/13/11/6/+1
BIIB STRYKERS/4/2/0/3/10/14/6/-7
BELAU KANU CLUB/4/0/0/4/5/18/0/-13

SEMI-FINALS

15/4/12 Team Bangladesh 6:1 Biib Strykers
15/4/12 Taj 8: Kramers FC

FINAL

22/4/12 Team Bangladesh 2:1 Taj


SQUAD-LISTS

BELAU KANU CLUB

1 Joe CARLOS (PAL), 2 Matt SISSERSON (USA), 3 Jo VILLAFLOR (PHI), 4 Marina TORIBIONG (PAL), 5 Nelson MASANG JR. (PAL), 6 Bill TONY (PAL), 7 Youri ITO (PAL), 8 Demei YOBECH (PAL), 9 O-Quinn SAKUMA (PAL), 10 Herman MALSOL (PAL), 11 McGee MEREB (PAL), 12 Jimmy JONAS (PAL), 13 Jonathan CASTANEDA (PHI), Tion FAATUUALA (SAM), 15 Charles REKLAI MITCHELL (PAL/USA)

MANAGER: Tino FAATUUALA

CLUB COLOURS: Black

BIIB STRYKERS

2 Teancum CARLSON (PAL/USA), 3 Tokue KEISUKE (JAP), 4 Uchelsurg CARLSON (PAL/USA), 5 Dave SHIPPER (USA), 6 Leo MENDIOLA (NMI), 7 Sergio NGIRAINGAS (PAL), 8 Megan KNIZE (USA), 9 Mac SASAO (PAL), 10 Robert BISHOP (PAL/USA), 11 Karol ISIP (PAL), 12 Timothy RAFAEL (PAL), 13 Nirblush TMETUCHL (PAL), 14 Luke CABERTE (PHI), 15 Ruby GABRIEL (PAL)

MANAGER: Leo MENDIOLA

CLUB COLOURS: Light Green/Black


KRAMERS FC

1 Patrick ARURANG (PAL), 2 Jennifer ANSON (PAL), 3 Mike FOX (USA), 4 Victor PAEZ (MEX/USA), 5 Geoffrey MARTIN (INDO/USA), 6 Torsten SCHAUDT (GER), 7 Jane MENZ (PHI), 8 Uchel TMETUCHL (PAL), 9 Swing AGUON (PAL), 10 Erriu MITCHELL (PAL/USA), 11 Noe CAMPOS (MEX/USA), 12 Gregory SHULTZ (USA), 13 Jason SHAW (USA), 14 Tabet KANO (USA), 15 Ben LEE (USA)

MANAGER: Torsten SCHAUDT

CLUB COLOURS: White/Black


TAJ

1 ARMANDO (MEX), 2 SATOSAN (JPN), 3 OLAIDE (N/K), 4 FABIO (ITA), 5 SYAFUI (JAP), 6 KINTARO (JAP), 7 HARRY (PRC), 8 FUTA (JAP), 9 DWIGHT (PAL), 10 KAZMA (JAP), 11 TONY (INDO/PAL), 12 WILL (PRC), 13 STEW (NZ)

MANAGER: TONY/DWIGHT

CLUB COLOURS: Blue/Blue


TEAM BANGLADESH

2 Firoz MAHMUB (BAN), 3 Asmamaw M. ANSEBEO (BAN), 4 Aminul ISLAM (BAN), 5 Hossain ANOWARE (BAN), 6 Mohammed SHAMIM HOSSAIN (BAN), 7 Lokman HOSSAIN (BAN), 8 Mohoshin MIAH (BAN), 9 Mohammed RUHUL AMIN (BAN), 10 NIJAM (BAN), 11 Mohammed Shakhawat HOSSAIN (BAN), 15 Main UDDIN (BAN), Awlad HOSSAIN (BAN), Malakai BITU (FIJI)

MANAGER: Mohammed Shakhawat HOSSAIN

CLUB COLOURS: Red/Red


To the doubtless disappointment of, and with apologies to, stats fans everywhere, season-by-season records are very hard to come by, so a list of (known) competing teams in the PFA League per season is below, with each season's champions in capital letters.

2004: DAEWOO NGATPANG, Mount Everest Nepal, Palau Track and Field Team, Team Bangladesh
2005: TEAM BANGLADESH
2006: SURANGEL AND SONS COMPANY
2006-07: Mount Everest Nepal, Palau Tiger Team, TEAM BANGLADESH, Surangel and Sons Company, Universal Peace Foundation
2012: Belau Kanu Club, Biib Strykers, Kramers FC, Taj, TEAM BANGLADESH

SHORT AND NOT PARTICULARLY SWEET - IRELAND AT EURO 2012

For Ireland's footballers, Euro 2012 was not a tournament which will be looked back on with any great deal of fondness. Although they gave it their all in the team's first final tournament for ten years, they suffered three defeats - against Croatia, Spain and Italy - scored a solitary goal while conceding nine, and were the first team to be eliminated from the tournament. Off the pitch, meanwhile, the Irish fans were attracting headlines and plaudits from all over Europe and beyond. So much so, in fact, that UEFA decided in Kiev on 30/6/12 to sanction an award for the fans in recognition of their behaviour and sportsmanship during Euro 2012.

Michel Platini, who gave the green light for the award, will travel to Dublin in the near future to present the award to the FAI, presumably to association president Paddy McCaul and CEO John Delaney. UEFA's secretary-general Gianni Infantino was quoted on Irish state broadcaster RTÉ's website as saying: "Everyone was very impressed by the Ireland fans. The team's results were mitigated by the fans. UEFA president Michel Platini will go to Ireland to give the award."

In an admirable gesture on behalf of the FAI, Delaney apparently suggested that the award be dedicated to the memory of 21-year-old Irish supporter and native of Blessington James Nolan, who tragically drowned in the River Brda in the central Polish city of Bydgoszcz the weekend before Ireland's 2:0 defeat against Italy. Estimates differ as to how many Irish fans made the journey to Poland for Euro 2012; depending on which publication/website you read, somewhere between 25000-45000 supporters migrated to Eastern Europe to cheer on the Boys in Green. It was good to see them getting an award for their support; it was an equally nice touch to see it dedicated to one of their number who never made it home.

While the Irish support made an indelible impression and won the hearts of their Polish hosts (and the rest of Europe) off the pitch, Euro 2012 was to prove a traumatic experience for the Irish team on it, and it all began within the first 4 minutes of their first game, which took place against Croatia in Poznań on 10/6/12. 

As the Irish fans were busying themselves with "doing 'the Poznan'/'la Grècque,'" Darijo Srna crossed from the right, the ball was half-cleared but it fell to Mario Mandzukić, whose rather soft header from 15 yards out seemed to wrongfoot Shay Given in the Irish goal; Given got a hand to the ball, but it still managed to sneak inside his left-hand post. Was Given wrongfooted? Was he unsighted? Was he too slow in getting down to the ball? Was he fit enough to play, taking into account the knee-injury problems latterly suffered by the Irish 'keeper? You could have given any reason you liked; the end result was that Croatia were in front, and early on at that.

Irish manager Giovanni Trappationi had hoped for a solid start from his charges, but the goal unsettled his charges for a time. Despite conceding the fewest number of goals of any nation (excepting the hosts , of course) during the entire Euro 2012 qualifying campaign, Ireland were looking anything but the defensively-astute side they had been touted as.

They were back on level terms before the first 20 minutes were up, when Aiden McGeady's free-kick from the left-hand side was nodded home by Seán St. Ledger, who nipped in behind and goalside of Vedran Corluka before heading low past Stipe Pletikosa and in. Cue wild celebrations on and off the pitch, and cameramen busying themselves with looking for attractive Irish colleens among the ecstatic throng in Poznań's Municipal Stadion Miejski. To be fair, they didn't have to look very far, but the state of contentment among the Green Army would not last for much longer.

Three minutes before half-time, and not for the first time in the history of football, a Dutchman would steal the show, but this time for all the wrong reasons. In the 43rd minute, Nikica Jelavić restored Croatia's lead, but it was a goal that would start a hundred thousand arguments. A shot by Luka Modrić was blocked by Stephen Ward, but what looked like an attempted clearance merely ricocheted into the path of a clearly offside Jelavić, who controlled the ball and floated it over a flailing Given. (Just for the record, Ognen Vukojević was also offside when Modrić attempted to drive his shot through the Irish defence.)

Given and his defenders appealed - a little bit of understatement goes a long way, dear reader - but Dutch referee Björn Kuypers dismissed allcomers with a wave of his hand. Kuypers seemed to have judged that Jelavić, although in an offside position, was not interfering with play when the hapless Ward's clearance went horribly wrong.

Half-time arrived soon after, with Kuypers receiving a well-intentioned critique of his performance in the first half from Trappatoni and his otherwise anonymous skipper Robbie Keane as they walked up the players' tunnel.

Time for the Irish team to take stock, you might think. If they did so, it all went horribly wrong once again shortly after the restart; in the 49th minute, in fact. Ivan Perisić's cross was met by Mandzukić, who saw his glancing header hit the bottom of Shay Given's left-hand, come off the back of Given's head and cross the line for his second, and Croatia's third, goal of the evening. Given was criticised for the third goal just as much as he had been for the first; rather unjustly, going by television replays, at least, which showed that the ball was going in after hitting the post anyway. A fine third goal, and there was nothing Given could have done to prevent it.

Croatia had deserved their lead, having played some fine football and leaving the Boys In Green in their wake, regardless of Kuyper's contribution, though the referee was to find himself thrust into the spotlight once again just after the hour mark, when he turned down a penalty appeal for Ireland after Keane was upended from behind by Gordon Schildenfeld just inside the Croatian penalty-area. It was, to employ a scarce-used phrase (irony, dear reader), "a stonewall penalty."

On the other hand, Kuypers also missed Keane elbowing an opponent later in the game, but it wouldn't have mattered much if he had seen it and sent Keane off; the LA Galaxy man had done little of note before he was put out of his misery and substituted by Shane Long after 75 minutes. Aidan McGeady had not had a good game - not many of his team-mates could say the opposite - but he had, at least, given it his best shot before he and an enthusiastic but ineffective Kevin Doyle were substituted earlier in the half by Simon Cox and Jon Walters respectively.

Cox and Walters huffed and puffed, but the closest Ireland came to reducing the deficit and preserving their 14-match unbeaten run was a header from Keith Andrews - who had earlier come close on a couple of occasions - which flashed just wide of Pietikosa's goal in the first minute of injury-time. And so ended Ireland's first game in defeat to a Croatia side which many thought would be there for the taking; it was the Croatians who took the points and, after Spain's 1:1 draw with Italy earlier in the evening, top spot in the group after the first round of matches. What hope for Ireland with Spain being their next opponents?

None, as it turned out. Ireland needed to avoid defeat against Spain in Gdańsk to have any chance of qualifying for the knockout stage of the Euros, and the Irish support were in bullish form and in fine voice as the game began. After Simon Cox stretched Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas to the limit with a second-minute effort, however, a night of horror for Irish players and fans alike ensued, and the torment wasn't long in coming.

Less than two minutes later, Xabi Alonso rampaged forward and his wondrous through-ball found David Silva. A superb sliding-tackle from Richard Dunne deserved better fortune than to find the feet of Fernando Torres, who floated past both Dunne and Stephen Ward and smashed the ball over Shay Given's head and into the roof of the net. The shot had bewildering pace, though questions could be asked whether Given had anticipated a low shot from the Chelsea man and was too slow to react. Spain were up and running, and Ireland were undone again by an early goal.

Anyone who says that Spain are boring really should have been taking a better look at the first half; Vicente del Bosque's team attacked incessantly, but were kept at bay only by Given - on at least three different occasions - a dogged Richard Dunne and their own wayward finishing. The unfortunate Simon Cox, who had a thankless task marking Xavi during the first half, was substituted by Jon Walters. Cox's inclusion in the starting line-up was controversial, but Spain were still only a goal up at the break. It could be argued, rather cheekily, that Ireland did better with Cox in the team than without him.

Forty-eight minutes were on the clock when first Arbeloa, then Torres, were foiled by two fine saves from Given in immediate succession before Silva bamboozled half of the Irish defence with a subtle hipsway and stroked the ball through Richard Dunne's legs and just of of reach of Given into the corner of the net.

The Spanish onslaught continued, with Given and Dunne especially stoic, but the defence was breached again in the 71st minute when Siva confused the Irish defence, leaving most of them on the seat of their pants before passing to Torres, who took advantage of all the confusion and empty space to run on and fire the ball past Given.

Spain could breathe easily at last, even though they were scarcely threatened up to that point, and Torres was immediately substituted by Cesc Fabregas. Trappatoni belatedly decided to allow Sunderland's much-vaunted young star-in-the-making James Mc Clean enter the fray in place of Damien Duff with a quarter of an hour to go, McClean coming on to a rapturous reception from the Green Army, and a few minutes later, also gave Derby County midfielder Paul Green (he has since joined Leeds United) his bow in the tournament, coming on for Glenn Whelan. Neither change made any real difference.

Fabregas completed the misery of the Boys in Green with seven minutes to go, when he fired in Spain's fourth with a low shot which fizzed across the Irish six-yard box and in off Given's right-hand post, a goal which confirmed Ireland's elimination from Euro 2012 with a game to play.

With Spain finally taking their collective foot off the gas, Robbie Keane finally showed he was alive by forcing Casillas into his second save of the night, and McClean and Aidan McGeady at last showed what they could do, but it was all far too little, too late. As the Irish fans found their voices at the end of the match, Ireland were out, the first team to be eliminated from the Euros, defeated by Croatia, but outclassed and steamrollered by Spain, who, UEFA's website stated, had 20 shots on target and 26 in all. It certainly seemed like it as well.

Pride was all that Ireland had at stake against their final opponents, Italy, and Trappatoni was adamant that his team would not roll over meekly against his countrymen. It was back to Poznań for Trapp's lads, and the game fell on a poignant anniversary.

The date of the game, 18/6/12, was exactly 18 years to the day when six Catholic men were murdered and five others injured as they sat watching the 2004 World Cup match between Ireland and Italy on television in The Heights bar in the tiny village of Loughinisland, in Co. Down, Northern Ireland. The attack was believed to have been carried out by members of the Loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), though no-one has ever been brought to book for the atrocity.

UEFA agreed to a request by the FAI that the Ireland players wear black armbands during the match, a gesture attacked by some Loyalists, one of who said that this would be "bringing politics into sport." (Tell that to the section of Northern Ireland supporters who routinely belt out sectarian numbers at Belfast's Windsor Park..) However, Niall Murphy, solicitor for the families of the bereaved and injured, applauded the initiative from both footballing bodies, describing it as "providing a forum to recall the awful event that took place on that fateful day when Ireland played Italy."

Ireland certainly started off the game full of intent, none more so than Keith Doyle, who had Italian manager Cesare Pirandelli's defence on red alert within seconds of the kick-off, and again a few minutes later. Italy needed to win the game and hope that the result in the group's other match, played between Croatia and Spain, would go their way, and, stirred by Ireland's early ebbulience, finally started to make their mark on the game, with Antonio Cassano and then Antonio Di Natale being denied by Seán St. Ledger blocking their goalbound efforts within the space of a few seconds some ten minutes before half-time, before Given made a mess of dealing with Cassano's rebounder from Di Natale's shot. However, it was immediately back to the same old same old, as Cassano headed in Andrea Pirlo's corner, beating Given and, despite his best efforts, Damien Duff, Ireland's captain for the day in honour of his reaching the 100-cap mark, who couldn't manage to hook the ball off the line.

Although Italy went in deserving their half-time lead, Ireland were looking dangerous at times, especially on the break and when employing crosses into the Azzurri box. The second half, though, began with Italy on the attack, with St. Ledger blocking Di Natale's shot from close range, and seconds later, Dunne saved Ireland's bacon for the umpteenth time with a timely block of Cassano's shot.

Keith Andrews tested Buffon after an hour with a long-range effort, which began a period of Irish domination without too many shots on Buffon's goal to show for it. Aiden McGeady was substituted by Shane Long in the 65th minute, which was a little mystifying as the Spartak Moscow midfielder had been having a good game. A little over ten minutes later, Kevin Doyle joined McGeady on the bench after being replaced by Jon Walters, who immediately set about creating havoc in the Italian defence. A foul on the Stoke City man led to Keith Andrews striking the ball low and hard through a melée of players, which Buffon punched away.

Italy's Mario Ballotelli had been making headlines all the way through the tournament up to this match, which he started on the bench, but he replaced Di Natale moments before Ireland's second substitution, much to the delight of the more mischievous sections of the media and watching public. His moment would yet come. Meanwhile, Robbie Keane was finally, belatedly, put out of his Euro 2012 misery when Simon Cox took his place with just a few minutes left.

Turkish referee Cüneyt Çakir had been blowing up more often than Al-Qaeda during this particular encounter, and he decided to give Keith Andrews a red card in the last minute of normal time after Andrews had shown a little dissent, which was a venting of some frustration and, coming as it did with moments to go in normal-time, was maybe a little ill-advised given Çakir's propensity to stick his hand in his pocket (wonder if the referee's like that on a night out?), but, taking into account Ireland's tournament up to that juncture, hardly surprising. Andrews, who had already been booked in the first-half, booted the match-ball into the stand for good measure. It was a sad, and premature, end to Andrews' tournament, but the misery for Ireland was not yet complete.

Ballotelli made sure of that around a minute after Andrews' dismissal. A corner, taken by Pirlo, had been awarded to Italy, and in the time that the ball had been swung over towards the middle of the six-yard-area, Ballotelli and Irish defender John O'Shea had taken turns to manhandle each other, but Ballotelli got to the ball first, swivelling to volley it spectacularly past O'Shea and Given. A few minutes of injury-time later, Ireland's Euro 2012 odyssey had reached the end of the road to the strains of "Fields of Athenry," which was being sung with gusto by the Irish support.

Trappatoni was reported as saying that his players showed "fear" during the early stages of both of their first two games of Euro 2012; one would say that that was not entirely true. Ireland showed positive signs after going behind against Croatia, equalising before the midway point of the first half, and Simon Cox, of course, had an early shot saved by Iker Casillas before Spain scored. There was a lot more to Ireland's performance in both games, and, indeed, against Italy than just the fear factor.
Ireland, on the whole, disappointed, though the spirit the team showed was commendable. The Irish fans and media seemed to underestimate Croatia somewhat, but the team were second-best for long periods of the game. The game against Spain was almost as one-sided as one will ever see, while, although enjoying much more possession - and showing a vastly-improved performance - against Italy, still didn't do enough with it, and Italy actually ended their game against Ireland having had more shots on Shay Given's goal than Spain did in their 4:0 victory against those wearing the green.

To be brutally frank, the Irish team, as a whole, were just not good enough, and are just not good enough. Remember, folks, that Ireland finished second, well behind Russia, in a qualifying group that also contained Slovakia (who had qualified for the 2010 World Cup Finals), surprise packages Armenia, Macedonia and Andorra, and that they had qualified for Euro 2012 after coming up against, and defeating, over two legs, the team that everybody wanted in the play-offs, Estonia. The 5:1 aggregate score also flattered Ireland somewhat, but it confirmed Ireland's place at a major tournament for the first time in 10 years.

It may be another 10 years before Ireland qualify for another major tournament. Ireland's forthcoming 2014 World Cup qualifiying group also features Germany and Sweden, and the chances that the Boys in Green will qualify for a play-off place, let alone directly for the final tournament in Brazil, although not non-existent, are pretty small.


Shay Given, Richard Dunne and Robbie Keane are surely on their last legs, Kevin Kilbane missed Euro 2012 due to injury, and seems to have retired from international duty, though, contrary to reports suggesting otherwise, 100-cap Damien Duff has not thrown in the towel with regard to playing for his country.

Given suffered various injury problems last season, and these seem to have slowed him up. He has consistently been one of the Ireland team's mainstays down the years, but he - uncharacteristically, admittedly - made several errors during Euro 2012 which proved costly. Dunne, in spite of all his courage and the fact that he was one of Ireland's best players at the Euros, is also past his best, and Keane is increasingly becoming invisible up front, especially against quality opposition, and appears only in flashes. He had a disastrous Euro 2012, contributing little. He will doubtless figure very heavily in Giovanni Trappatoni's plans, but he is increasingly becoming Ireland's very own "rabbit killer."

Ireland undoubtedly missed the injured Kevin Foley and Keith Fahey, and Trappatoni made a mistake in not including young Séamus Coleman in his final squad. He also should have started James McClean at some stage during the tournament, instead of limiting him to a cameo role against Spain. Why not start Jon Walters against Croatia? Stephen Hunt surely deserved a run out as some stage and would have added some grit and guile to midfield. No sign, either, of the much-vaunted Darron Gibson.

It could also be argued that the tactical system that Trappatoni and his assistant Mario Tardelli decided to employ gave precious little scope for getting the ball up to the forwards. It was not always pretty to watch, being used to stifle the opposition, but the system also rather stifled his own team; it was just too defensive.

Then again, you can only really work with what you have, and this has been the curse of Irish managers down the ages, from Éoin Hand and Liam Tuohy to Brian Kerr and Steve Staunton. Keith Andrews, Aiden McGeady, Richard Dunne and Seán St. Ledger were the pick of the bunch; a very, very average bunch, it has to be said. There has been a lot of discussion about the standard of the players in the Irish squad, but that is hardly a shock when you list the clubs they play for.

There are no Irish senior players plying their trade at any of the top four clubs in the Premier League, let alone in Seria A or La Liga. At the time of Euro 2012, St. Ledger, Paul McShane, Paul Green and reserve 'keeper David Forde were all on the books of Championship sides. Keith Andrews also became a Championship player at the end of last month when he signed for newly-relegated Bolton Wanderers from West Bromwich Albion. 

All of this, of course, seems to point to an over-reliance by Trappatoni on the old-guard at the expense of youth, and also to what many observers claim to be a total lack of investment by the FAI in Irish football at the grassroots level, possibly due in part to the fact that the FAI are still tens of millions of Euros in debt following the building of the Aviva Stadium on the site of the old Landsdowne Road stadium in Dublin.

It is all very worrying when the rest of Europe admire the Irish supporters while summarily dismissing the national side. On the other hand, Roy Keane summarily dismissed both the national team and its supporters (some observers may argue with this assessment), claiming that it wasn't right that Irish fans were singing while the team were getting rolled over by their opponents in Group C. Other commentators in the media and on fora have criticised the Irish supporters who made the journey to Poland for having too much of a "party, party" attitude, and that they weren't real supporters who regularly attend League of Ireland matches.

Why shouldn't they have a good time? They were probably using up all of their holiday allowance to be at Euro 2012, so it was extremely churlish to admonish them for having a good time on holiday, and supporting the Boys in Green at the same time. Would it be beyond the realms of possibility to suggest that those doing the admonishing do not live particularly austere lives themselves? In passing, not every Dutch, German or Swedish fan who attended Euro 2012 regularly goes to an Eredivisie, Bundesliga or Allsvenskan match. (Most probably don't.) 

It was difficult to know who Keane was getting at: the players, or the supporters. Well, one could say that, unlike Roy, the Irish supporters didn't walk away, start sniping or retreat into their shell when the going got tough, and, for all their limitations, neither did the players.

The question remains: What will the future hold for the Irish national team and Giovanni Trappatoni? It is perhaps time for Trap to begin phasing out the older players; he should now look increasingly to the future and give Forde or the other reserve goalkeeper, Keiren Westwood, a run-out against Serbia in Ireland's friendly on 15/8/12. It is time to make use of Séamus Coleman and James McClean, time to make more use of Jon Walters, and time for one and all to have more faith in Aiden McGeady. It is, perhaps, time for McGeady to have more faith in himself and stop hiding his light under a bushel.

Time, too, for some of the other fringe players to get their fingers out at club level, and also high time for the FAI to invest more at grassroots level, and for League of Ireland clubs to widen their nets. There have been many complaints about the standard of domestic football in Ireland, that no-one goes to watch domestic football in Ireland, that the best young players will always go to England to try their luck (this is, however, no longer a given) and about the fact that Gaelic games and rugby union have long been vying for the attention of young Irish sportsmen and women.

Perhaps, it is time for people to stop complaining and start doing something to improve matters from the bottom up instead of from the top down. Without a stable and sustainable base, the future of club and international football in Ireland will be a bleak one. People much better placed and informed than your correspondent can see that. Before all that, however, it is time for Trappatoni to revamp the national team (as well as keep an eye on the League of Ireland) by letting the young guns loose on an unsuspecting European public during the 2014 World Cup qualifiers; the kick-off in September approaches, and a trip to Kazakhstan is first up on the Irish agenda, and this is followed up by a visit from Germany in mid-October. Will Trappatoni play it safe, or will he shake things up a bit? Hmmm..


IRELAND SQUAD FOR EURO 2012

GOALKEEPERS: 1 Shay GIVEN; 16 Keiren WESTWOOD; 23 David FORDE

DEFENDERS: 2 Seán ST. LEDGER; 3 Stephen WARD; 4 John O'SHEA; 5 Richard DUNNE; 12 Stephen KELLY; 13 Paul McSHANE; 18 Darren O'DEA; 21 Paul GREEN; 22 James McCLEAN

MIDFIELDERS: 6 Glenn WHELAN; 7 Aiden McGEADY; 8 Keith ANDREWS; 11 Damien DUFF; 15 Darron GIBSON; 17 Stephen HUNT

FORWARDS: 9 Keith DOYLE; 10 Robbie KEANE; 14 Jon WALTERS; 19 Shane LONG; 20 Simon COX

MANAGER: Giovanni TRAPPATONI (ITA)

ASSISTANT MANAGER: Marco TARDELLI (ITA)