The ('''FAI''') is the organising body for the sport of
Association Football (soccer) in the
Republic Of Ireland . It should not be confused with the
Irish Football Association (IFA), which is the organising body for the sport in
Northern Ireland .
The FAI was formed as the Football Association of the Irish Free State (FAIFS) in
1921 upon the partition of
Ireland into the
Irish Free State and
Northern Ireland . It later changed its name to the current title. Whereas the
IRFU , the governing body for
Rugby Union , remained a single all-Ireland organisation, the FAIFS was formed initially as a split by southern representatives who felt the
Belfast -based IFA was too northern-oriented. Both organisations initially claimed to represent the entire island, although in practice the member clubs were divided on the same basis as the political border.
A number of players played for both the FAI "Ireland" (against
FIFA members from mainland Europe) and the IFA "Ireland" (in the
British Home Championship , whose members had withdrawn from FIFA in
1920 ). When the IFA rejoined FIFA in
1946 as "Northern Ireland", the FAI team thus became the
Republic Of Ireland Team . (Playing for both teams was not forbidden until
1950 .)
During the
1980s and
1990s , the FAI had an aggressive policy of recruiting talented players in the
Irish Diaspora who were eligible for Irish citizenship to play for the national team. Many of them became core players during the national team's rise to respectability in that period, including
John Aldridge ,
Mick McCarthy and
Ray Houghton .
At its foundation, the FAI formed a league championship, the
Football League Of Ireland , and established a
FAI Cup competition along the lines of the
FA Cup and
Scottish Cup competitions. A second cup competition was formed in
1974 called the
FAI League Cup . As a measure of the competitiveness of domestic football only one League of Ireland club ( in 1989) has ever won the league championship, the FAI Cup, and the FAI League Cup in the same season.
The
Setanta Cup was inaugurated in 2005 as cross-border competition between clubs from the
League Of Ireland from the
Republic Of Ireland and the
Irish League from
Northern Ireland .
