{"id":503807,"date":"2025-10-16T09:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T09:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/503807\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T09:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T09:32:13","slug":"ni-football-fund-secretary-rejects-call-for-more-ni-football-fund-money-despite-dup-minister-gordon-lyonss-warning-after-casement-park-commitment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/503807\/","title":{"rendered":"NI Football Fund: Secretary rejects call for more NI Football Fund money despite DUP minister Gordon Lyons\u2019s warning after Casement Park commitment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn (Peter Byrne\/PA)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2.81815521.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn (Peter Byrne\/PA)<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Hilary Benn has rejected a call for Westminster investment in the NI Football Fund (NIFF), despite the Communities Minister warning that Government funding for Casement Park and not local football grounds would \u201ccause consternation for many across Northern Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The NIFF is mired in controversy after some clubs got nothing, and Crusaders FC and Derry City FC are in the process of mounting a <a href=\"http:\/\/chrome-extension:\/\/hdppkjifljbdpckfajcmlblbchhledln\/bcr.html?bcr=https:\/\/www.google.ie\/search?q=ni+football+fund+legal+challenge+bel+tel\">legal challenge<\/a> over their exclusion from the fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn (Peter Byrne\/PA) Hilary Benn has rejected a call for Westminster investment in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[22305,42497,6853,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-503807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-garrett-hargan","9":"tag-gordon-lyons","10":"tag-hilary-benn","11":"tag-northern-ireland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115383156990999611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}