BELFAST AGREEMENT 10TH ANNIVERSARY: JACK ANDERSONhighlights the important role sport can play in the fight against sectarianism 10 years after the signing of the Belfast Agreement.
APRIL 10th marks the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Belfast Agreement. The decade has witnessed extraordinary change in Northern Ireland, and sport has not been unaffected.
The consensus among the North's leading sporting organisation - the GAA, the IFA and the IRFU - regarding the need for a multi-purpose stadium of international standard is of itself symbolic. As is the favoured location for that stadium - the former Maze prison site.
Nevertheless, at grassroots level, progress in the face of the North's sporting segregation remains slow. Unfortunately, and in an ironic twist, it appears that the Belfast Agreement might now be seen to aggravate these divisions, and revive some uncomfortable reminders of the North's divisive sporting past.
Although the Agreement has little to say on sport, its provisions on a shared British/Irish "birthright" and cultural "party of esteem" have some application to disputes of a sporting nature.
The disputes in question include the decision to select Derry-born Darron Gibson for the senior international squad during the Republic's recent Euro 2008 campaign, which continues to provoke an angry response from the Irish Football Association. Similarly, there is a lingering disappointment among many Ulster rugby supporters that God Save the Queen was not played at Ravenhill prior to Ireland's game against Italy in August 2007.
Gibson represented Northern Ireland at under-16 level. His subsequent decision to switch allegiance to the Republic has led the IFA to complain to Fifa, football's international governing authority, that the FAI's actions are in breach of Fifa's eligibility regulations.
The FAI's approach is based on the Belfast Agreement's shared birthright clause, which permits persons in the North to hold a British or Irish passport, or both. This, they say, is consistent with Article 15.1 of Fifa's statutory regulations, which states that any player holding the nationality of a country is eligible to play for that country.
In strictly legal terms, the FAI is not poaching Northern-born players who declare for the Republic. The provisions of an internationally recognised treaty, signed by two sovereign governments, override internal Fifa regulations. Late last year, in a Solomon-like declaration, Fifa's legal committee seemed to acknowledge this by ruling that Irish-born players can elect to play for either the North or the Republic.
Arguably, though, legalistic definitions of nationality and citizenship do not lie at the heart of the Gibson affair. The player himself appeared to declare for the Republic as much for footballing reasons as anything else, and principally because of an apparent Belfast-bias in the selection of underage international squads in the North.
In addition, although the IFA led by its chief executive, Howard Wells, has done outstanding work in combating sectarianism in football, uncomfortable undertones remain for the nationalist community in the North. This was seen most clearly in the death threats received by former Glasgow Celtic captain Neil Lennon while playing for Northern Ireland and, to a lesser extent, in the fact that unlike internationals involving Scotland and Wales, the British anthem is sung at Northern Ireland games.
Nevertheless, in a spirit of neighbourliness, and in recognition of the fact that IFA has invested in the development of players born in the North, it might be preferable in the longer term if the FAI entered into an informal agreement with the IFA as to player eligibility. Through this agreement, matters of sectarianism, identity and selection could be discussed in a football-sensitive manner.
Ironically, there is a precedent, unique in terms of football's nationality and eligibility laws, for such an arrangement - Derry City's membership of the Eircom League.
Unlike soccer, rugby remains all-Ireland in organisation. In fact, until the mid-1950s, Irish rugby internationals were held occasionally in Belfast. The convention was that when the Ireland team appeared in Belfast, it would stand for God Save the Queen and the Union flag would be flown.
In the build-up to a Five Nations game against Scotland in 1954, the 11 Republic-based players on the Ireland team told the then IRFU president they would prefer to remain in the dressing-room for the game's preliminaries.
A compromise was reached that day, with the playing of an abbreviated anthem known as The Ulster Salute, but Ireland did not play another game at Ravenhill until 2007.
The IRFU and its Ulster Branch announced "protocol" for that game against the Italians demanded it take place without national flags or anthems, save the playing of Ireland's Call.
Subsequently, members of the Ulster Unionist Party raised the issue at the Stormont Assembly, contending the IRFU's actions were in breach of the Belfast Agreement's principle of cultural "parity of esteem".
The reaction south of the Border to unionist concerns has generally been dismissive. Writing in this paper (February 14th, 2008), Risteárd Cooper gently ridiculed the arguments made in favour of the playing of the British anthem at Ravenhill by former unionist politician Ken Magennis, observing, "that would mean a man from say, Bruff, Co Limerick, would be expected to stand in a green jersey and sing 'that' anthem before playing for his country."
There is no doubt that if such circumstances arose, Ireland's John Hayes might not be as emotional as he was during the playing of Amhrán na bhFiann at Croke Park against England. Equally, though, and in a point made repeatedly by former Irish rugby internationals such as Trevor Ringland, some acknowledgement must be given to the fact that at the height of the Troubles in the North, when even crossing the Border could be injurious, Ulster players stood under the Irish Tricolour for A Soldier's Song.
Overall, this controversy again illustrates that legalistic interpretations of individual provisions in the Belfast Agreement are not usefully transferred to sport. The Belfast Agreement is a legislative framework. Only where there is compromise can its constitutional commitments work.
Given the entrenched nature of the North's divisions, those necessary compromises can on occasion appear bizarre to outsiders.
In January, Edwin Poots, the North's Sports Minister, became the first DUP politician to attend a GAA match in an official capacity. Poots accepted the GAA's invitation on condition the venue would not be named "after a terrorist" and that he would not have to take his seat until after the Irish national anthem was played. These conditions, Poots claimed, highlighted "factors that dissuaded unionists from partaking in the GAA".
Poots's symbolic and praiseworthy gesture prompts two brief concluding points. Firstly, it must be reiterated that resort to constitutional law might serve only to aggravate disputes of a sporting nature. It is preferable that solutions come from within sport itself. For instance, there is no doubt that the raw edge of the North's sporting sectarianism has been blunted in recent times from the nadir that was that night in November 1993 when Jack Charlton's Ireland travelled to Windsor Park in search of qualification for the 1994 World Cup. Now, and with far less bile, Windsor Park hosts Linfield's home games in the Setanta Cup, while the adjacent Olympia Leisure Centre hosts a cross-community football project, called Midnight Street Soccer, for young people.
Second, the North illustrates, as apartheid South Africa did previously, that sport's role in combating bigotry and intolerance can be a positive one, though it is one that is prone to exaggeration.
As political commentator Eamonn McCann wrote in 1997, the particular damage sectarianism does to sport in the North is not just "an argument for a confined challenge to sectarianism in sport but an ancillary argument against sectarianism in society generally". More than a decade later, McCann's remarks remain valid.
Ultimately, it is the manner in which the people of Northern Ireland meet that anti-sectarian challenge - in not only their sporting but also their daily lives - that will determine the continuing success and legacy of the Belfast Agreement.
Disputes of a sporting nature
THERE IS no reference to sport in the Belfast Agreement. Nevertheless, provisions in the Agreement might have some indirect relevance to disputes of a sporting nature. Three instances are noteworthy.
• The selection of Derry-born Darron Gibson in the Republic's senior international squad during the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign.
• The match protocol on anthems and flags prior to the Ireland v Italy Rugby World Cup warm-up game held at Ravenhill, Belfast, on August 24th, 2007.
• The presence of the North's Sports Minister, Edwin Poots, at a McKenna Cup game between Down and Donegal held at Páirc Esler, Newry, on January 16th, 2008.
Belfast Agreement, Constitutional Issues, April 1st, 1998
Article 1(v): "The participants affirm . . . full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, social and cultural rights . . . and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos, and aspirations of both communities."
Article 1(vi): "The participants recognise . . . the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted . . ."
Jack Anderson lectures in law at Queen's University, Belfast.
