‘Sport can unite us’: Northern Irish stadium looks to Euro 2028

A graffiti-scribbled construction fence flanks Casement Park in Belfast. The gates to Northern Ireland’s premier venue for Gaelic football and hurling are locked. Inside, the abandoned pitch is overgrown and the ruined concrete stands are tangled with weeds.

But five years later, the site, which is named after a British diplomat-turned-an unlikely icon for Irish nationalists, could be the venue for some of the 2028 European Football Championship matches if London and Dublin win their joint bid to host the tournament.

For a still deeply divided region commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement last month, which ended most of the violence after three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland, speaks the symbolism of a joint bid between islands that have a history of colonialism and divide the conflicts, volumes .

“That would be a wonderful ending [to the Good Friday anniversary] – shows that we are now a grown community, happy in our own skin, happy to embrace other people’s culture rather than being suspicious and scowling over fences,” said Jarlath Burns, new president of the Gaelic Athletic Association, the governing body of the Irish national sports team.

Traditional community identities in Northern Ireland can determine which sports are practiced. Rugby is widely seen as a more unionist sport, while Gaelic games – Gaelic football, hurling and camogie – are part of the nationalist identity. Both communities play football, but Windsor Park football ground is in a largely unionized area of ​​the capital.

The Football Association of Ireland, formed in 1880 when Great Britain ruled all of Ireland, has advocated using Casement Park to bid for Euro 2028 – but not all fans agree. The Association of the official NI supporter clubsrecognized by the IFA, said: “We believe, and indeed we prefer, that football tournaments should be hosted by football stadiums.”

And Casement Park, the 70-year-old home of County Antrim GAA in nationalist and largely Catholic West Belfast, is not just any stadium. Its name and history are synonymous with Ireland’s struggles for independence.

Roger Casement, son of a Protestant army officer, was born in Dublin but grew up in Antrim. As a British diplomat, he uncovered human rights violations in Congo and Peru and was knighted in 1911. However, he converted to the Irish nationalist cause and was hanged in London five years later for supplying arms to republican rebels trying to overthrow British rule.

The island was divided in 1921, with Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK while Ireland gained independence.

But within 50 years, Northern Ireland was plunged into a 30-year conflict, with republican paramilitaries in the IRA fighting to drive out the British and loyalist gunmen fighting to remain in the UK. Soldiers sent from London were also guilty of atrocities.

Casement Park was occupied by the British Army at the beginning of the so-called Troubles. In 1988 it was the grisly scene in which the IRA beat up two British army corporals who were later shot dead. In 2006 it marked the 25th anniversary of the deaths of 10 IRA hunger strikers in Maze prison.

After the peace accord there were plans to develop the site of this infamous prison into a state of the art stadium for football, rugby and Gaelic matches. The project was abandoned after opposition from some unionists, but in 2011 the power-sharing authority instead agreed to partially fund the modernization of the three sports venues.

Windsor Park football stadium and Kingspan rugby stadium in Belfast have already been refurbished, but Casement Park, which hosted the last game in 2013, has been mired in years of planning problems and litigation. The £77.5million redevelopment was only given the green light last summer.

But neither Windsor Park nor Kingspan are big enough to host Euro 2028 games, according to the plan 34,500 seat bowl shaped Casement Parkdesigned by the architects of the £1billion Tottenham Hotspur stadium in north London has been included in the list of 10 tournament venues.

“It sends a message of reconciliation, generosity and that sport can unite us,” said Paul McErlean, who captained Antrim’s Gaelic football team in the 1980s and 1990s.

The cost of the upgrade is now widely expected to have doubled – and the prospects are further complicated by years of paralysis of Stormont’s regional executive as a result of Brexit trade rules. With £62.5m pledged by the Northern Ireland Executive and €15m by the GAA, Gaelic Games officials are hoping the joint euro bid will free up fresh funds.

“No one waved money,” an insider said. “But a commitment has been made that Casement Park will be developed by then.”

The leaders of the region’s five major parties have backed the euro bid. But the Democratic Unionists, the main union group that boycotted Stormont for a year, say no extra public funding should be made available as other overburdened public services desperately need money.

The British-Irish offer faces a competing offer from Turkey. A decision is due in autumn, then Uefa will also decide on the organizer of the 2032 games.

The success could make Casement Park “the emblem of a new Northern Ireland,” said Joe Brolly, a prominent GAA commentator. Or as Ciarán McKernan, a former Antrim hurler, put it: “An incredible number of people in our community would visit England [play a Euro 2028 match at Casement Park]. That would be another bridge to cross.”