Protest Service against Sunday Football

The crowd as it gathered outside Tyndale Free Presbyterian Church for the protest meeting. While the protest service was taking place others gave out Gospel tracks and a leaflet explaining the importance of upholding the sanctity of the Sabbath day.

Sunday Football - Sabbath Desecration

Sadly, tomorrow [Lord's day 29th March 2015] will witness a further decline in the acknowledgement and upholding of the law of God respecting the Sabbath day. A new low in departure from God will take place in Northern Ireland. This is the first time that a home international football match will be played on the Lord's day. It is part of the Euro 2016 qualifying competition.

Representatives from The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, Government & Morals Committee, met with the Irish Football Association some weeks ago to express our opposition to this football match going ahead, and also to make known the inconvenience it will cause to one of our local Free Presbyterian congregations. Tyndale Memorial congregation, on Donegall Avenue in Belfast, is situated a few hundred yards away from one of the main entrances to Windsor Park, where the football match will be played. 

Sunday Football

It was back in September 2013 that the possibly of international Sunday football was first mentioned. See here. UEFA, the European football governing body, indicated that they were taking control of arranging the fixtures of their qualifying competition rather than the countries themselves. This was part of UEFA's plans to maximise television revenue and exposure for the tournament. That change would inevitably bring about the situation where Northern Ireland would end up playing a home international fixture on the Lord's day.

For decades Sunday football was not allowed to be played in Northern Ireland at all. It was six years ago that the Irish Football Association decided to change that rule allowing teams to play on the Sabbath day. A few Irish League sides have done so, but not the international team.

Sabbath observance has been sacrificed once again on the altar of commercial advantage. This is the new god that is worshipped today!

Northern Ireland may be forced to play football on a Sunday

Thankfully there has been a reluctance to play football on a Sunday in Northern Ireland over the years. The rules were changed some time ago to permit Sunday football but few Football Clubs have taken up the option.

There is, however, a possibility that Northern Ireland may be forced in future to play Sunday football by UEFA, during the the 2016 European Championship group stages.

To read further details see Belfast Telegraph.

To read other articles on this Blog about Sabbath Observance, see here.