Just a small matter of fitting in an extra 22,000 of them Did notice that Casement Park is due a rebuild to 40,000 capacity, but getting the NI National Team to play there would be a bit like getting Rangers to groundshare at Celtic Park on steroids?
That’s insane! 40,000 capacity for some of the games where they’d be lucky to get 10,000? Presumably that means St Mary’s is out, unless one of Johnson’s “brown envelopes” finds its way into someone’s hands at FIFA?
Let’s be honest that reason alone means this bid is probably far more likely to succeed. Yeah 40,000 is nuts, although they do generally get close to filling venues at the moment in the 32 team format, even with weaker sides, can’t see that continuing with 48 Teams though, they should reduce it to 30,000 for that at least (but won’t). St Mary’s might have a chance, Fifa don’t really like more than two venues in the same city (as well as only allowing one city to do it, which would surely be London in this instance). They have bent a lot of rules for Qatar because it would be impossible for them to avoid this, but can guarentee they wouldn’t do this for the U.K, which is good because it shouldn’t be entirely situated in London and the North West. Plus I’m sure one of Hancock’s mates could build an extension to the Kingsland stand with just an ice cream truck and 20 year old face masks for a small Gov contract worth £3bn
Aye it was something I had noticed, would it be carnage trying to get the NI National Team to play in a GAA Stadium in the heart of Irish Nationalist territory though?
Good point Getting them to agree to playing football in a Gaa stadium again is probably the main issue, wouldn't matter too much if it were the NI team or someone else IMO. When Lansdowne was knocked down it took a serious amount of effort into getting 'foreign' sports played at Croke Park. However, the GAA are known as the 'Grab All Association' so if there's money to be made it can be done!
They wouldn't qualify anyway so will be fine...Either will be tbf Don't think they would let 5 teams qualify automatically
I see that Valery and Vokins were again both left out tonight (Valery came on in the 91st minute). Says a lot.
It is madness to set a limit of 40,000 on the World Cup stadiums. In 2030 we'll only just becoming out of 'Lockdown 14' and the stadia will be limited to 2000 fans max anyway.....
In fairness it’s not a new thing, the last World Cup before they set the limit was France 1998. Russia managed to sneak two 33,000 capacity stadiums in but needed special dispensation. However since they are expanding the tournament they should lower the capacity threshold.
Torino faces a points deduction and forfeit after obeying health officials who advised the team to quarantine after a COVID outbreak, while Serie A wanted the game to go ahead anyway. Lazio just sort of waited around for a while with no opponent to play, because Torino thought "no seriously we're not coming" was a good enough answer, and the league disagreed. If it doesn't get overturned (and ye gods it should) they'd be right on the cusp of the relegation line.
Wow late drama in the Juve v Porto game! Porto have knocked out Juve on away goals. Game finished Juve 3-2 Porto (4-4 agg). Porto played with 10 men from 54mins and all through extra time and added time to about 124mins!
Robbie Savage demonstrating his continued genius by asking "is this going to be Porto's greatest ever night". That's two times winners, Porto. How is that bloke still employed?