It seems there is a side to the former prime minister, Sir Tony Blair, that few knew existed. Until now. Newly released government documents have bizarrely revealed Blair’s keen interest in football in Northern Ireland. So much so that during his time as prime minister, he was apparently prepared to go to quite extraordinary lengths to get an English Premier League football team to relocate there in the late 1990s.
Blair wanted the struggling Premier League side Wimbledon FC, based in south London since 1912, to move to Belfast. A memo dated 16 July 1998 – just months after the Good Friday Agreement was signed – recorded Blair’s view that ‘it would be excellent if Wimbledon were to move to Belfast and we should encourage this as much as possible’. Other previously confidential government papers reveal the official view that it would be a ‘significant breakthrough if Belfast had a football team playing in the English Premier League’ and that the move ‘should be able to build up strong cross-community support and provide a positive unifying force in a divided city’.
Recently football has come under growing threat from those keen to push some political or social agenda
One official note even suggested that Wimbledon FC could undergo a name change to Belfast United – a bizarre suggestion for a club with a rich history more than 400 miles away in London.
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