Martin O’Neill’s pre-match press conference was pretty low-key, apart from one topic.
A topic that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Republic of Ireland, Sweden or Group E.
The Irish boss was scathing in his criticism of the violence in Marseille before, during and after England’s 1-1 draw with Russia.
Uefa have warned both countries that a repeat of the scenes that shocked a continent could see them ejected from the tournament altogether.
Martin o'neill and Robbie Keane are here for press conference ahead of #irl v #swe pic.twitter.com/QSSc0dWAuL
— Mikey Stafford (@me_stafford) June 12, 2016
O’Neill believes the governing body have reflected the feelings of all real football fans with their strong stance.
“The scenes down in Marseille are pretty tragic,” he told a press conference in Saint Denis ahead of Ireland’s Group E opener against Sweden on Monday night.
“They’re something that we thought we might not see for quite some considerable time at any part of the tournament, but to start off on that note, it’s unedifying, it’s pretty shocking,” he added.
“Uefa have come out and condemned it in very strong language and I think everybody feels the same. It’s a poor start to the competition, I hope it can be rectified and sorted out.
“People are talking about maybe segregation wasn’t strong enough, but do you know what? If people are setting out for trouble, I think they’ll cause it regardless and from the pictures that we saw, it was pretty disconcerting.”
Captain Robbie Keane was also asked for his views on Uefa’s hardline stance.
“If it cost you your place at the tournament, it would obviously be disappointing because you work so hard to get here as a team, as a nation and then you see something like this. It’s not great to see.
“They let everybody down. You have to say there’s only a select few that always ruin it for everybody else, so it’s very, very disappointing to see.”
To this point, thankfully, the Irish fans have restricted themselves to some light-hearted traffic disruption.
Irish fan getting some gym work in in Clichy earlier. German fan did it after one-handed. Show-off. pic.twitter.com/QKaC9MqqHt
— Paddy McKenna (@PaddyMcKenna) June 12, 2016
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