| UEFA | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 18 November 1880; 145 years ago (1880-11-18) |
| Headquarters | Windsor Park,Belfast[1] |
| FIFA affiliation |
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| UEFA affiliation | 1954 |
| IFAB affiliation | 1886 |
| President | Conrad Kirkwood |
| Website | www |
TheIrish Football Association (IFA) is the governing body forassociation football inNorthern Ireland. It organised theIreland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, became theNorthern Ireland national football team.
The IFA was formed on 18 November 1880 by seven football clubs mostly in theBelfast area, as the organising body for the sport across all of Ireland. A meeting was called byCliftonville of other football clubs that followed the rules set out by theScottish Football Association (SFA). At that meeting, on 18 November of that year, seven clubs formed the IFA, making it the fourth oldest national football association in the world (after those ofEngland,Scotland andWales). The founding members were:Alexander,Avoniel, Cliftonville,Distillery,Knock,Moyola Park andOldpark.[2] The IFA's first decision was to form an annual challenge cup competition similar to theFA Cup andScottish Cup competitions, called theIrish Cup. Two years later,Ireland played its first international againstEngland, losing 13–0 (which remains a record for both teams; a record win for England, and a record loss for (Northern) Ireland).
Shortly after thepartition of Ireland, in 1921, theFootball Association of Ireland (FAI) was established as a rival association to regulate the game in what was to become theIrish Free State. The immediate cause of the split lay in a bitter dispute over the venue for the replay of anIrish Cup match in 1921 involvingGlentoran ofBelfast andShelbourne ofDublin. When the first cup match was drawn in Belfast, because of theIrish war of independence, the IFA reneged on a promise to play the replay in Dublin and scheduled the rematch again for Belfast. Shelbourne refused to comply and forfeited the Cup.[3] Such was the anger over the issue that theLeinster Football Association broke away from the IFA and formed its own national association. Those behind the FAI believed that football should be regulated by a federation based in the Irish Free State's capital,Dublin; they also accused the IFA of neglecting the development of the game in the South. The IFA's supporters argued that the federation should be based where the game was mainly played – namelyUlster, and its principal cityBelfast.
Both associations claimed to represent the whole of the island, each competing internationally under the name "Ireland" and selecting players from both the rival national leagues, which also split at this time. Interventions byFIFA gave the FAIde jure organising rights over the 26 counties of the Republic, with the IFA restricted to Northern Ireland. From the 1950s onwards, the IFA no longer claimed it was the association for the whole of Ireland. In 1960, the association moved to Windsor Avenue in south Belfast, in a building once occupied byThomas Andrews. The IFA moved again in 2016 to its current location at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park, Belfast. The IFA continued to regulate the game in Northern Ireland, and all results obtained by the Irish national side and records in theIrish Football League and the cup competition stand as Northern Irish records.
Therefore,
Along with the otherHome Nations' associations (theEnglish FA, theScottish Football Association, and theFootball Association of Wales), the IFA sits on theInternational Football Association Board, which is responsible for the laws of the game. The IFA continues to have responsibility for the running of theNorthern Irish national team.
TheNorthern Ireland Women's Football Association (NIWFA) is the IFA'swomen's football arm. It runs a Women's Cup, Women's League, a range of underage football camps[5] and theNorthern Ireland women's national football team. In April 2014, Northern Ireland'sMinister for Culture, Arts and LeisureCarál Ní Chuilín threatened to cut the IFA's funding unless it stopped treating women's football as "an after thought".[6]
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