For the past few months, Irish Sport for Palestine (ISFP), which I am part of, has been campaigning for Ireland to boycott its football matches against Israel. We believe playing against Israel legitimises a genocidal regime and gives cover for international law violations, apartheid and war crimes.
On Sunday, the match between the two teams went ahead in an almost empty stadium in Hungary. Regardless of the final score (3-0) in Ireland’s favour, they lost the minute they stepped on the pitch to play Israel. They lost because they went against the majority of the Irish people who do not want these matches to be played. They lost because they succumbed to pressure to normalise genocide.
A February poll showed that 76 percent of respondents did not want the team to play Israel. In a survey of professional football players in the Irish men’s and women’s leagues also conducted in February, 63 percent said Ireland should not play Israel.
The very spirit of Ireland, including Irish sport, is rooted in anticolonial resistance, so why should Irish football help legitimise a settler-colonial project?
One player, Gavin Bazunu, embodied that spirit with his courageous and principled decision to boycott the match. Instead of following his lead and taking into account the sentiments among other players and the Irish public, the leadership of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) deliberately created confusion around hypothetical sanctions. It also sought to use a communication with the Palestinian Football Association, which has long called for FIFA and UEFA to suspend Israel, as a form of tacit approval.
Advertisement
In the end, instead of taking responsibility for the decision, the FAI leadership decided to hide behind the players on the national team and have them vote on whether they should play. The players should have never been put in that position.
Ultimately, the power and the blame lie with the FAI as well as UEFA and the Irish government, where there has been a total absence of leadership at every level. Decision-makers at the top of the FAI have consistently proven themselves to be dishonest and untrustworthy.
Last November, 93 percent of FAI members voted in favour of its board formally requesting Israel’s removal from UEFA. This was based on Israeli violations of statutes relating to illegal settlement clubs and antiracism policies.
Why, then, did the FAI leadership insist on playing this game? Why did it not reflect the wishes of FAI members and the Irish public? Why did it not protect Irish players? Why did it not stand up to UEFA like other federations have done in the past?
Israel lost the match on Sunday, but they triumphed on the pitch. They use these sporting moments to weaponise their Zionist propaganda and let violence spill into sport. Whether it’s the Israel Football Association and its intimidating behaviour, players and their military-style celebrations or the Israeli fans with their military chants and racist insults, they are all given full permission to turn the sporting arena into a battleground.
A match that proceeded with heavy security in a so-called neutral venue with barely any fans or media broadcasting should indicate how far outside the realm of normality this is. Yet, as long as Israel remains in sporting competition, this is the reality that sport will continue to operate in.
Decision-makers said playing the match was a win for football and for keeping politics out of sport. This is the lie they need to maintain to protect their interests and the status quo. This is the excuse UEFA hides behind for not removing Israel even though there are clear legal grounds to do so as well as their own precedents.
Meanwhile, the FAI is telling us how courageous the players who took to the field were and how their pre-match protests were acts of solidarity that will raise awareness.
Don’t fall for it. Words and symbolic gestures are hollow without principled action to back them up. We have come too far as a movement, and any action less than boycotting the match is unacceptable.
The institutional rot of sporting organisations like the FAI means a system overhaul can’t come quickly enough. The FAI completely threw its players and coaching staff under the bus. It gave a masterclass in what not to do, but its president, Paul Cooke, still believes it has all been handled “as well as could be expected”.
Advertisement
This is the kind of entitlement that comes with a historic lack of accountability from within the FAI, and as expected, there are widespread calls for the FAI board’s resignation.
There are also calls on the Irish government to provide clarity on its role in all of this too as it continually speaks out of both sides of its mouth on all issues relating to Palestine.
The Irish people are angry, and rightfully so, but this isn’t over; it is still Stop The Game. Anger will fuel us but hope will sustain us. There is another chance for Irish football to do the right thing on October 4 when the second fixture is supposed to take place in Serbia.
It is not an exaggeration to say the potential impact of this moment could be seismic. Not playing the game would be the most sporting thing the Irish players could do. It would be celebrated as one of our country’s greatest sporting victories.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: aljazeera.com
