History
The first international association football match was played between England and Scotland, two of the Home Nations of the United Kingdom, in 1872. [4] The remaining two Home Nations, Wales and Ireland both played their first matches within the following decade, in 1876 and 1882 respectively. [5] The first meetings between the sides were friendlies until they were organised to form the British Home Championship, the first international football tournament, for the 1883–84 season. [6] The competition continued for 100 years, although it was not held during the First or Second World War, before being abolished in 1984 due to claims of fading interest and low crowds. [7]
Calls for the return of the a competition between the Home Nations had been sporadically raised since the end of the British Home Championship with varying degrees of success, [8] but the idea gained widespread attention in 2006 when Northern Ireland manager Lawrie Sanchez called for its return. [9] In 2007, the national football associations of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland met with Wales raising a proposal to revive a Home Nations tournament in the form of a "Celtic Cup" in response to the failure of any British side to qualify for UEFA Euro 2008. However, the plan was ultimately delayed due to fixture congestion with 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying fixtures already being in place. [10] [11] The competition was officially announced in September the following year with the tournament scheduled to be held in Dublin between February and May 2011. England chose to turn down the chance to take part in the competition citing fixture congestion. [10] [12] The Football Association of Wales stated its belief in 2007 that England might have joined at a later date if they could have been convinced that there were "practical solutions" to problems like fixture congestion. [13]
It was announced on 12 August 2010, that the tournament would be sponsored by brewing company Carling, and known for sponsorship reasons as the Carling Nations Cup. [1] [14] A second tournament was provisionally scheduled to take place in Wales in 2013. [15]
The 2011 Nations Cup began in February 2011 at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. The Republic of Ireland won the inaugural tournament after winning all three of their matches, culminating with a 1–0 win over Scotland on the final matchday. It was originally intended to be a biennial tournament, but poor attendance at the first tournament meant that it was discontinued. [2] [16] [17]
The Nations Cup plan initially proposed the tournament would be played as a knockout competition, with the semi-finals being played in August and the final and third-place playoff being played the following February. [10] However, the competition was eventually structured as a round-robin, with each team playing each of the others once, resulting in a total of six games in each season of the competition. [1] [2] Three of the teams involved (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) had formerly competed in the now defunct British Home Championship, along with England. [9] The matches in the 2011 tournament were played in February and May, with the location due to rotate on a tournament-by-tournament basis. [18] Brittany also expressed an interest in taking part. [19]
Venue
The newly rebuilt Aviva Stadium was chosen to host all six games of the 2011 tournament.
Aftermath
Criticism
The Football Association of Ireland was criticised by the media, supporters and other football associations for setting high ticket prices. The 51,700-capacity Aviva Stadium was less than half-full for all of the games. [28] [29] The game between Wales and Northern Ireland was attended by only 529 fans, many of whom were Scots who happened to be in Dublin for their country's game two days later.
During the game between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Republic fans booed "God Save the Queen", and Northern Ireland fans booed the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, as she greeted players before the game. [30] [31] Northern Ireland fans were criticised for singing sectarian chants at games. [32] Scotland fans also booed "God Save the Queen", when playing Northern Ireland. [33]
Wales manager Gary Speed criticised the tournament organisers for scheduling Wales' games to be within three days of each other, the only team to suffer such timing. He also criticised the officiating in the game against Scotland, in which in his opinion several fouls on Welsh players went unpunished. [34] [35]
Future tournaments
After the first tournament, which attracted some small attendances, there was a dispute about the division of revenues between the four associations. [15] In early 2011, it was reported by BBC Sport that there was a possibility of the British Home Championship being revived in 2013, [36] [37] but no tournament was held. Jim Shaw, the president of the Irish Football Association, said in January 2012 that he did not envisage a second tournament being staged. [15]
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Republic of Ireland 
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Wales 
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