'Disgusting, pathetic, insulting' - FAI apology after James McClean hits out at 'Londonderry' map
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The FAI have apologised for labelling county Derry as 'Londonderry' in a map used in the match programme for the Ireland WNT's Euro 2025 playoff with Wales at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night.
Former Ireland player James McClean, a Derry native, highlighted the map on his Instagram account, writing: “The match programme at last night’s Ireland vs Wales game at the Aviva Dublin… disgusting, pathetic, insulting, hang your heads in shame you shower of a***holes!”
The map was being used to highlight the different counties of origin of Ireland's players and the FAI say a "genuine error" was made with the labelling.
"The wrong graphic was inadvertently used in an Ireland Women’s National Team match programme," an FAI spokesperson said. "This was a genuine mistake and the Football Association of Ireland apologises for any offence caused."
It isn't the first time this year that an FAI match programme was attracted unwanted attention.
For the Ireland v Latvia U21 international in September, errors saw a number of Latvia players listing with bizarre, incorrect names, such as 'Robert The Liar' and 'Dario Shit'.
The FAI said it was reviewing its production process to prevent such errors reoccuring.
An FAI spokesperson said then: “We are aware of a translation error that was published in the match programme for the Under-21s match on Tuesday. The programme was immediately pulled from sale, and our Latvian visitors were contacted and made aware of the situation for which we apologised, and which was accepted. We have already begun a review of our programme production process to ensure it will not happen again.”
The Latvian FA accepted the apology: “We have received explanations about the representation of the names and surnames of the players of the Latvian U-21 national team in the official game programme of Tuesday’s match, as well as an apology from the creators of the program.
“We accept explanations and apologies and understand there was no intention to harm.”