McGregor’s Guide to Irish Sporting History and National Identity
It was a day when over one million people packed up work early and headed for wherever they were going to watch the start of the latest great adventure.
In Euro 2012 the opening game was on a weekend and the fun lasted three minutes before Croatia scored. Yesterday was different as the team played better football than many would have dreamed possible as little as a year ago and were unfortunate to be pegged back by an own goal equaliser.
The broadcast on RTE kicked off with this inspiring message from Conor McGregor. If where you watched was too noisy to fully appreciate it here it is again to send shivers up and down your spine…
__________________________________________
Runners Up
Irish fans in Paris were heavily praised yesterday with none of the trouble that had marred the weekend matches and videos of Abba sing offs replacing those of sickening violence.
We had to settle for second best though in Orange’s monitoring of social media mentions that resulted in the ‘most passionate’ fans getting their countries colours on the Eiffel Tower.
Spain does have somewhat a larger population and we managed to beat off Italy, despite the excitement of their impressive win over Belgium. Hopefully we can manage the same over group rivals Belgium next Saturday…
__________________________________________
KPMG Steps Down
They always say the best time to bury bad news is at a time when there is major news breaking. KPMG have been sitting uncomfortably as auditors of FIFA, as well as of the Qatar and Russia World Cup bids since innuendo turned into investigation and Sepp Blatter’s empire began to collapse on itself.
As action on the pitch dominates, the firm have quietly resigned from the multi million contract they have held for ten years. FIFA said they ‘welcome the change is it gives the organisation a chance to work with a new firm.’
KPMG made no comment other than to confirm the termination of their contract and will be hoping that any criticism likely to emerge from ongoing investigations by Swiss and US authorities is limited to local individuals and not cast a shadow over the whole organisation.
