29 May 2026; St Patrick’s Athletic goalkeeper Joseph Anang fails to take possession from a corner during the SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division match between Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick’s Athletic at Tallaght Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Move on over Dublin Airport wannabes and leave the social media brilliance to the Ryanair geniuses
Cathal Dervan, Editor
Here’s a message for the Ryanair social media team wannabes who work on the Dublin Airport social media accounts - Declan Rice is no more English now than he was in 2018 when he first wore the white away jersey as an Ireland senior player. And he’s no less Irish now either than he was that day for the friendly against Turkey in Antalya.
On Saturday evening, Declan Rice scored in the penalty shoot-out as Arsenal lost to PSG in what was, for the most part, a disappointing Champions League final.
Rice, once of Ireland but now of England, scored but Eze and Gabriel didn’t as the Gunners again failed to add the old European Cup to their repertoire.
It’s important to note here that former Irish international Rice did score his penalty at a crucial time in that shoot-out to level the scores at 2-2 after Eze and then Mendes had missed, for Arsenal and PSG respectively. He scored, they missed. It happens in football.
But none of us, including the Dublin Airport social media team, can really imagine the pressure that any elite player is under in a penalty shoot-out.
What we can acknowledge is that it takes real cojones to stand there in front of almost 62,000 people with a ball on the spot in front of you and a goalkeeper and the world staring at you - most of whom, it seems, hate your club these days.
What we also know is that no player sets out to miss his or her penalty kick in a shoot-out. Not Declan Rice. Not Finn Azaz. Not Alan Browne. Not Stuart Pearce or David Batty or Gareth Southgate.
Nor, we have to assume, does whoever runs the socials for Dublin Airport know what it is like to even play in a game of such importance or to take a penalty in a Champions League final shoot-out. We don’t even know who they are or if they play football and ever ended up missing a penalty and losing a cup final at any level.
It is a pity then that said nameless social media person behind the Dublin Airport socials chose to attack Declan Rice and Arsenal with a cheap shot on Saturday night. It’s one they must have been saving to use ever since their Rangers penalty jibe back in March after their penalty shoot-out against Celtic and the two Gers misses that sent the DA team into overdrive if you remember.
We let them off that time. Goading Rangers could be classified as mickey taking, a bit of fun on behalf of the Celtic brethren. - even if I’ve regularly seen the shops at Dublin Airport accept money from Rangers fans, some of them even wearing their colours!
This time however the Dublin Airport cheap shot was wide of the mark, in my ageing opinion at least. To carry an image, posted here, of a disconsolate Declan Rice and claim underneath it: ‘Lost on penalties. Obviously he is English after all’ is crass and insulting to anyone with dual nationality, never mind the thousands of Arsenal fans who use Dublin Airport every week of every month of every year.
Arsenal by the way will probably fly into the same Dublin Airport in August for their pre-season friendly at the Aviva but they’re only going to be customers so it’s all right.
Declan Rice is English and he is Irish, like Morrissey, like so many others with shared identity. Had Martin O’Neill played him in that competitive game against Moldova in 2017 when he trained with the Irish squad before the game, he would happily have committed himself then to Ireland and we’d happily have taken him.
Had he won that competitive cap, even as a raw teenager, we wouldn’t even be having a Dublin Airport social media debate right now. We’d have taken him when the chance was there and we’d have taken the opportunity to switch allegiances away from him.
12 November 2020; Declan Rice warms up during the International Friendly match between England and Republic of Ireland at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
But we didn’t. So Declan exercised his right and switched to England, the country where he was born to Irish stock. We’ve all vilified him for that. Of course we have since hating the English is a national past-time here.
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But maybe it is time to call an end to the Declan Rice baiting. Maybe we need to finally get over it and wish him well, with Arsenal or with England. Maybe we need to grow up as well and ask the social media team at Dublin Airport to do the same.
Let’s leave the cheap shots to Ryanair and just enjoy their ‘window seats with no windows’ responses whenever anyone complains.
They’ve made an art of it. Anything else is imitation and it’s not even bordering on flattery.
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In the second of a two-part series, refereeing legend Dr Errol Sweeney shares his thoughts on VAR and the World Cup challenge for referees and talks about The Ref's Opinion, the Facebook TV show he hosts with regular guest Keith Hackett every Monday evening.
Robbie Keane is involved in a head to head tussle with his old Ireland boss Martin O’Neill for the Celtic manager’s job - and reportedly met with club owner Dermot Desmond at a secret location on Monday night.
The Scottish Sun reports online that Keane was set to hold talks with Desmond about a return to Parkhead and a return to management just a week after quitting Hungarian side Ferencvaros.
The Irish record goalscorer played on loan at Celtic for six months in 2010 and has enjoyed title winning success in Israel and Hungary in his short managerial career to date.
He is keen to return to the dug-out as soon as possible after leaving Ferencvaros just after winning the Hungarian Cup with the Budapest side last month when they were pipped to the title by Gyor FC.
The Scottish Sun reports that Keane will add Celtic legend Scott Brown and former Irish international winger Jonny Hayes, currently B team boss at the club, to his backroom staff if he convinced Desmond to give him the job.
But O’Neill also has a part to play in this story with suggestions he could move upstairs into a Director of Football role if Keane returns to Glasgow.
While the report also states that O’Neill could stay on for another year after snatching the League title from under Hearts’ noses during his second term as interim boss in the season just finished.
O’Neill was quizzed on the Celtic job last week while in attendance at the Belfast Telegraph Sports Awards.
He said: “I’m seeing the owner next week, but I think he’s looking for a younger man – a 71-year-old! I am getting awfully old, but I don’t know what’s in his mind, and whether I would have the energy to do it again. But it was nice to be asked first time.”
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill has revealed he’s held talks with both FAI Director of Football John Martin and FIFA over the Republic’s plans to step up the recruitment of dual-elilgibility players.
O’Neill made the revelations to the Belfast Telegraph following comments from Martin at a media briefing last month that the FAI will increase their efforts not to lose out on players like Conor Bradley of Liverpool.
O’Neill responded to those recent comments from Martin in his interview with the paper’s Steven Beacom. “I know John from his time at Shamrock Rovers and I’ve had a conversation with him post those comments,” said O’Neill who has also seen highly rated Chelsea youngster Chris Atherton switch to the South.
“It wasn’t directly around those comments, it was just on the situation in general. This is a situation that we have dealt with since I’ve been in the job (first time around). It’s important that we have dialogue with the FAI on this.
“I’m not in favour of young players making international transfers and I’ve had that discussion at FIFA because I think that in our situation, for young players, maybe because of where they’ve grown up or their background, it’s a more difficult decision to make.”
Ireland’s controversial Nations League home game against Israel looks more likely than ever to be moved out of Dublin and to a neutral venue as the FAI Board prepare to discuss their options in the wake of growing public opposition to the October fixture going ahead at the Aviva Stadium.
Ahead of a reported Board meeting on Tuesday night, the Sunday Times’ Irish football correspondent Paul Rowan has written that Irish manager Heimir Hallgrimsson will back the idea of a neutral venue as his players prepare to release their own statement on the controversy.
Rowan reports that, asked after the against Qatar on Thursday night about facing Israel outside of Dublin for the ‘home’ game, Hallgrimsson replied: “Do I think it is a good idea or not? Depends on the situation. If it is unplayable here, then it is a good idea. If it can be played here, I want to play here.”
Sinn Fein and the Social Democrats will both bring motions to the Dail this week calling on the Government to stop the Israel game but Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are both backing the FAI stance that the game must be played in Dublin.
Katie McCabe has fulfilled a lifelong dream and signed for the Chelsea club she idolised as a young girl in Tallaght - with dreams of one day wearing the same club shirt as Damien Duff.
From a family of Chelsea diehards back in Dublin and now in Cork with Ireland preparing for Friday’s World Cup qualifier against Holland, McCabe was unveiled as a Chelsea player as her Arsenal contract came to an end.
The Irish Independent reports that McCabe said: “It’s a new chapter in my career. This is something that I feel I’m ready for right now. All I wanted was Damien Duff shirts when I was a kid, and he was winning trophies with Jose Mourinho.”
Newly capped by Ireland senior boss Heimir Hallgrimsson, midfielder Rory Finneran will drop down to the under 21 squad for upcoming friendlies against Croatia and Qatar and a training camp just outside Zagreb this week.
RTE Sport reports that Ireland boss Jim Crawford, who worked with the senior setup as Finneran made his debut against Grenada in Spain last month, has included the 19-year-old in his travelling party for the first time, alongside seven other new faces.
Newcomers also included are Dundalk striker attacker Gbemi Arubi, Cork City teenager Cillian Murphy, Shamrock Rovers pair John O’Sullivan and Naj Razi, Burnley’s Kian McMahon-Brown, Brighton and Hove Albion defender Sean Keogh and Stoke City’s Gabriel Kelly.
All photos on TheSportsHacks are provided by Sportsfile.com
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