Soccer is the highest participation sport among young people in Ireland, according to an Irish Sports Council report.
The battle for the hearts and minds of the Irish sporting youth has long been a contentious and highly political one. Soccer sits atop the pile with 340,070 participants across the country in 2,500 clubs. The GAA finds itself in second place with 294, 577 registered players across 2,359 clubs. Rugby, though growing, is a distant third with 158,685 registered players and 236 clubs.
The question then arises, were one a dictator who could conscript a band of people into your army, as you chose, would you take the soccer lads or the GAA folk.The soccer fraternity are slightly larger numerically but no doubt the GAA set would fight back with their own claims about "greater physicality" and their much trumpeted aversion to "prima donna antics."
The rugby grouping would be formidable but are numerically weak. They wouldn't complain though because that's rugby Obviously there'd be a fair overlap between lads playing the three sports.
Elsewhere in the report, the Sports Council report proclaimed 2013 "an incredible year" for Irish sport. Over sixty medals were achieved in World and European competition and participation in sport among the general population has increased since 2011.
