About Northern Ireland

The Irish Football Association (IFA) was established on 18 November 1880 by seven Belfast-area clubs, making it the fourth-oldest national football association in the world, after England, Scotland, and Wales. The founding members included Cliftonville, Distillery, and Moyola Park. The IFA is affiliated with FIFA and UEFA and is headquartered at Windsor Park in Belfast, which also serves as the national team's home ground.

Following the partition of Ireland in 1921, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) was established in Dublin as a separate governing body for the south. A dispute over the venue for an Irish Cup replay between Belfast's Glentoran and Dublin's Shelbourne triggered the split, with the IFA refusing to relocate the match as promised. From 1950 onwards the IFA focused exclusively on Northern Ireland, and from 1954 the national team became officially known as Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's greatest achievement came at the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain, where they reached the quarter-finals — defeating the host nation Spain 1–0 in the group stage in one of the tournament's biggest upsets. Pat Jennings, George Best, and Norman Whiteside are among the most celebrated players produced by Northern Ireland. Whiteside became the youngest player ever to appear in a World Cup when he played at the 1982 tournament aged 17 years and 41 days, a record that still stands.