It’s time for an all-Ireland football association

No chance.

The sets of supporters hate each other.

The republic fans are by and large working class, Dublin based with many having a great affinity for Celtic.

The northern fans are by and large working class, Belfast based with many having a great affinity for Rangers.

Soccer is a odd sport in the way that home and away fans have to be kept apart to prevent violence, fans bases are primarily made up of Neanderthals.

If Ireland had a single team, they would have to keep the home support apart.

One thing I like about the Republic of Ireland soccer is that they fly the national flag and sing the national anthem.

We'd have to get rid of that all to appeas a bunch of loyalist knuckle draggers.

If I was a unionist Northern Ireland supporter I'd be extremely wary of any merger based purely on what happens in rugby. How many internationals have the Irish rugby team played in the North this century? Every major match is played in Dublin and the Irish national anthem is played (with Ireland's Call being a sop to the North). It's basically a Republic of Ireland team with the bonus of being able to select people from the unionist community as well.

For that reason I can't see it happening.

I also think that Reunification in the next 25 years is being optimistic for several reasons:

• Yes the Unionist community is in demographic decline but that doesn't mean that the rest of the population of the North is necessarily going to want to go for a united Ireland. You have a growing population of people who neither see themselves as British or Irish but specifically Northern Irish. There are also many migrants who don't have the same historical family ties to one community or the other.
• A Yes vote in the Republic in any referendum is far from a foregone conclusion. Polls have shown that a majority of people will vote Yes to a simple question. However when you start applying constraints (New flag, new anthem, taking over London's subvention etc etc) the numbers drop off. All of those things would need to be agreed prior to any referendum (nobody wants another post-Brexit scenario). Any polls have to take that sort of stuff into account.

I think the first issue with your proposal is that it cannot happen before a United Ireland happens.

I seem to remember there being some fifa rules that you can only have an affiliated football association if there is an internationally recognised government (country) I may be wrong on this but this is how I remember it.

I don't share your optimism.

I like the idea of a United Ireland but if there was a vote tomorrow on a United Ireland, I'm not sure I'd vote yes because of the following:

Being realistic, how would we afford a United Ireland? You'll say who cares but I care as do many other people. 1 in 4 workers in the North work for the Government, many in makey-uppey jobs such as community workers etc. How would we pay for that? Public Sector expenditure for Northern Ireland in 2021 was £36.4 billion. We'd have to make up that, and more each year.

Then there's the legal differences, do we make everyone in the North follow our laws, or do we follow their laws, or do we draft a totally new set of laws that will cause mayhem? For instance gun laws. Do we use our laws, or NI laws or what do we use? Or the age of consent. It's 16 in the North. It's 17 here. These are minor areas (pardon the pun), but I'm sure there's 1000's of examples of more complicated legislation that would cause serious trouble. Look at the shyte Brexit has caused, and that's only a small area of the law.

And then there's the matter of splinter groups who don't agree with a United Ireland. Some of them would undoubtedly form terrorist groups. How would we manage that seeing as we can hardly effectively police what we have at the moment.

There's an awful lot more to consider than blah blah blah 800 years blah blah when pondering the ramifications of a United Ireland. And a football team would be pretty near the bottom of the list.

According to ARINS at Notre Dame the amount needed to be spent was "rounding figure". They broke it down why. We can easily afford it. The splinter groups have nowhere to go if there is a vote. Who's going to support them? As an added bonus we'd have a potentially bigger soccer league and pick of players.

The substantial public sector bill alone is certainly not a "rounding error". We cannot easily afford it.

The threat of loyalist insurgencies in a united Ireland cannot be casually dismissed out of hand either.

We already have a pick of all of the Norther Ireland players who were born in the 6 counties but want to play for us.

I myself would vote for Reunification regardless of the costs but I think it does a disservice for people to ignore the very real difficulties it would present and announce it as a fait accompli.

I’m not interested in the political side, this is purely about merging the two football associations. I honestly don’t see the issue with my proposal

You clearly do, precisely because you claim you’re not interested in the political side, knowing full well that’s precisely the reason there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell of it happening.

For the governing bodies, two national teams becoming one reduces matches, revenue and maybe jobs.

What should happen first would be an All-Ireland league. That would be beneficial to everybody and raise the overall level of the league (and maybe the popularity of the sport too).

Football is political, you can escape that. It's largely an urban working class sport. Look up the history on how and why the FAI were formed, not much has changed. Forget the armchair fans that follow foreign football on subscription chanels, its the active fans that will be sway any decisions. One Football Association means one league. There is no way Linfield or the other Protestant clubs of Belfast will ever be in favour of one association.