Controversial.
How do you measure passion for football? There were over 250,000 applications for games involving the Republic of Ireland at Euro 2016 yet the average attendance at League of Ireland Premier Division games is around 1,500. There are numerous, complex reasons for this contradiction, but it is a widely held view that Irish fans are amongst the most passionate in the world.
However, according to this table compiled by the Daily Mail, Ireland’s ‘fanaticism’ for football is amongst the lowest of the countries competing at Euro 2016.
They define ‘fanaticism’ as attendance at domestic games, and the data is based on the percentage of each respective country’s population who regularly attend these games.
Iceland are top, with an impressive 7.5% regularly attending games. England are second and Russia in last place, with just 286,782 out of a population of 144 million regular match goers.
The Republic of Ireland is ranked in 19th position, with 0.6% of the population attending games, a total of 25,836 people out of a population of 4,630,000.
However, it could be argued the table isn’t an full reflection of a country’s ‘fanaticism’ for football. Turkey are second last, but anyone who’s witnessed the scenes at Istanbul derbies wouldn’t question their fans’ passion for the game.
The table still makes interesting reading.
