By David McCullagh and Fiachra Ó Cionnaith
Tánaiste and minister for foreign affairs Dick Spring tried to put the US government under pressure to make sure as many Irish soccer fans as possible were allowed to attend the 1994 World Cup.
With an estimated 20,000 fans expected to follow Jack Charlton’s team to the United States, it was feared that the usual visa refusal rate of 4% would leave up to 800 of the Green Army stranded at home.
Spring raised the issue with senior State Department official Mary Ryan at a meeting in Dublin in December 1993, urging the Americans to show “as much flexibility and sensitivity as possible” in processing visa applications.
He said problems would mainly be caused by young, single people wanting to make a trip at the last minute, after being “caught up in the euphoria” around the tournament.
Ms Ryan, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, said it was unlikely that the refusal rate could be reduced.
The American authorities were concerned because of the high numbers of Irish visitors who overstayed their visas, but Spring tried to convince Ryan that less than 1% of Irish soccer fans were likely to stay longer than permitted (in other words, given the numbers travelling, up to 200 people).
He also warned her about the “public opinion fallout” if hundreds of soccer fans were refused visas.
These arguments appeared to have little impact on Ms Ryan, who had been described by the Irish embassy in Washington as very “strait-laced” in her approach to visas.
They also recognised that there was unlikely to be much flexibility on visas for fans, because Americans didn’t really care about soccer.
The files released in the National Archives this week also show numerous complaints from politicians about constituents being refused visas.
Spring pointed out in reply that the issue had been raised “at the highest levels of the US administration”, including by president Mary Robinson, even before the Republic of Ireland’s qualification was certain.
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The documents also reveal fears among government officials that the “exuberance” of Irish soccer fans might attract bad publicity.
They worried that American police might confuse the “boisterous but well-behaved” Irish fans with soccer hooligans and overreact, with potentially “negative PR implications”.
This was one reason the government decided not to use the World Cup as the hook for a publicity campaign to promote Ireland.
The other was that not many Americans were expected to actually watch the matches, so an expensive ad campaign based around the World Cup was unlikely to produce a commercial return.
Bord Fáilte did give out t-shirts with a tourism message to Irish fans, when taoiseach Albert Reynolds showed an interest in the scheme, it was decided to improve the quality of the t-shirts.
Between higher quality products, and greater than expected numbers of fans travelling, an extra £50,000 was added to the original budget of £20,000.
After a stunning win in their opening game against Italy, the 1994 World Cup turned out to be a bit of a disappointment for the Republic of Ireland.
They lost to Mexico and drew with Norway in their other pool games, and then lost 2-0 to the Netherlands in the round of 16.
[Based on documents in 2024/52/411, 2024/52/412, 2024/53/413 and 2024/52/550]