Euro 2012 Irish Fans To Receive Award

IT MAY HAVE been a tournament to forget on the pitch but Ireland’s remarkable support will be recognised by UEFA, it was announced today.

Giovanni Trapattoni’s team were comprehensively beaten in all three of their Group C games and were sent packing as statistically the worse team at Euro 2012.

However, the impeccable behaviour of Irish fans over the eight days was praised from many quarters as they captured the hearts of the Polish people.

“‘The Irish! We will miss you!” was the headline in a Poznan-based newspaper after their elimination, while a German television station paid tribute to the rendition of ‘The Fields of Athenry‘, which rang out around Gdansk’s PGE Arena during the closing minutes of the 4-0 defeat to finalists Spain.

The executive committee has decided to give a special award to the Irish football fans,” Gianni Infantino told a news conference in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on the eve of the final.

“Everyone was very impressed by the fans of the national team of the Republic of Ireland who came to Poland. The team’s results were mitigated by the fans. (UEFA) president (Michel) Platini will go to Ireland to give the award.”

- Additional reporting from AFP

http://thescore.thejournal.ie/uefa-ireland-fans-award-505198-Jun2012/

Love it .

You know you're well behaved fans and brilliant when even the police are taking videos of you on there phones while on the job

this is so ghey.

You just think you're cool because you saw your first real boob and vajayjay yeseterday.

But seriously I know I'm Irish and all but the way we acted during the tournament should be what going to football tournaments is all about. Just having fun before and after the 90s minutes with everyone, the locals even the teams you played against(in our case were hammered).

If we qualify for the next Euro's I'm defiantly going to go over. Some of the videos I've seen have just been fantastic. I still get shivers every time I watch us singing the fields of Athhenry when we're 4-0 down to Spain and reading all the praise we're reciveing from all over the world, makes me proud to be Irish and an Irish fan.

loving the award, but i have went to alot of home games and there was no banter or singing.

I must go to a few away games.

Respect to them Singing all the Way through the Tournament, whereas every single passing day about the fans of countries contributing to bans for the confederations of the nation about racist, bitter chanting

To be fair it's harder to get banter going at home games because people are rushing to and from games and not many stick around after because they have to get home. It doesn't help either when kick offs are at &:45, especially during weekdays when people would have to rush home from work.

There is still a good bit of banter at home games but not as much as away games for pretty much the reason I said IMO

Roy Keane likes this.

Throughly deserved by the way. Best fans on Earth. Fact.

More than England got. lololololol

Such witty banter from Flash.

I thought you'd like it, pretty much what it is though.

You think this would happen if Spain were the best fans? No, this is so patronising to a small nation. If this was England I wouldn't care about the "award" but I would be embarrased at the fans who are proud of it.

It's actually being awarded in the most part for the fan who died over there. I think his family will be recieving the award on his part, so yeah.....good man. Should his family be embarrassed?

This. Every time I hear a foreigner go "You Yanks have great fans, shame you guys suck." (oddly enough this is usually from an Irishman/Serb/Albanian/Bosnian/Asian person whose country is worse, and has accomplished less in the sport) I feel like a retarded kid getting a pat on the head for tying his shoes.

Is that at all mentioned in the article posted? No. My post was clearly relevent to the information posted.