Ex-pat fights to restore '˜lost' Republic from US TV football graphic
A Londonderry man has launched an online campaign to force a TV network to stop removing the Republic of Ireland from a graphic used in its coverage of the English football Premier League.
The image from the NBC network shows a map of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – but has sea where the Republic should be.
Paul McMenamin is from Londonderry but is living in Boston, USA.
On the webpage he created on the site www.change.org, called “Ask NBC to restore the full map of Ireland on their Premier League Football coverage”, he wrote: “Ireland is an island of 32 counties. Creating a map that deletes 26 of those counties from the image is confusing and offensive to Irish people everywhere.”
“It is ridiculous,” wrote one person. “You can’t delete a land mass.”
They added that either the Republic should be restored to the graphic, or Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales should be cut.