Sport in Ireland Football in 2003 accounted for 34% of total sports attendances at events in the Republic of Ireland, followed by hurling at 23%, association football (soccer) at 16% and rugby at 8%, and Initiative's ViewerTrack study measuring 2005 sports audiences showed the sport's highest-profile match, the All-Ireland Football Final, to be the most watched event of the nation's sporting year. Football is the most played team sport in Ireland. Gaelic football, hurling, golf, aerobics, cycling, swimming and billiards/snooker are the other sporting activities with the highest levels of playing participation in the Republic of Ireland. As Northern Ireland is a constitute
Sport in the United Kingdom the evolution of modern boxing, with the codification of the rules of the sport known as the Queensberry Rules, named after John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry in 1867. Britain's first heavyweight world champion Bob Fitzsimmons made boxing history as the sport's first three-division world champion. Some of the best contemporary British boxers included; super-middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe, featherweight champion Naseem Hamed, and heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis. Welshman Calzaghe's display against Jeff Lacy in 2006 prompted Lacy's trainer to state "I have never seen a better performance than that in the world." British professional boxing offers some of the largest