There won’t be a boycott. We can’t be certain of much surrounding Ireland’s Nations League fixtures against Israel but we can feel reasonably safe in predicting that much at least. The Ireland team will be turning up to play Israel, away and home on successive Sundays as September slips into October.
Despite the FAI having formally asked Uefa to ban Israel from competition, they have always been explicit on this point. Even when the motion in question was passed by the FAI membership at last year’s EGM in Blanchardstown, the association made no bones about what would happen if Ireland were drawn against Israel at any stage. Only this week, president Paul Cooke told the FAI’s general assembly that Ireland would play against Israel if it came to pass.
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The FAI had their answer ready because they knew the Israel question would come up sooner or later. The stratification of European football since the dawn of the Nations League has narrowed the band of likely opponents in any given draw. Also, the very existence of the Nations League means entering a third competition pot, after the World Cup and the Euros. Ireland weren’t likely to avoid an Israel clash forever.
True, they’d have hoped it would take longer than this. The first draw since the Gaza ceasefire and they end up cheek by jowl with the one country in world football that they’ve formally taken a stance against. They could have got Hungary, Poland or Scotland but Israel it is. So now they have a problem. Many problems, in fact.
The first will be the vast opposition that exists to them playing the game at all. There will be no end of voices – some of them from within football and plenty more besides – who will call for the Ireland team to pull out and take whatever punishment Uefa decides to mete out. Some have done so already in the hours since the draw was confirmed.
Sinn Féin TD Joanna Byrne – herself the co-chairperson of Drogheda United and a member of the FAI’s National League Committee – wasted no time in condemning the association for its stance.
“In November, the FAI voted to submit a motion to Uefa to ban Israel from its European club and international competitions. That was the correct moral and principled position to take. Therefore, I am extremely angry and dismayed that the FAI have confirmed they will play against Israel.
“It appears that their morals, and principled position, was only on paper – not in actions where it counts. Israel should not be in this competition … I hope the FAI knows the furore that will be coming for them from the Irish football fans – the vast, vast majority will not want to see our Boys In Green in the same stadium as the Israeli team.”
There will, naturally enough, be lots more where that came from over the coming months. If history is any judge, the FAI will most likely deal with it by ducking for cover. They had their prepared statement winging its way to media inboxes within minutes of the draw and refused to say any more on it. The FAI delegation in Brussels on Thursday skedaddled in double quick time without stopping to talk to the media.
This is how they will roll. One of the few lessons the FAI have learned over years of scandals is the merit of never saying anything of interest unless and until they absolutely have to. For better or worse, they will most likely deal with calls for a boycott mainly by ignoring them.
A more pressing matter will be whether or not to host the home tie at all. At this remove, it’s no certainty the game will be held in Dublin. The FAI will want it played in Lansdowne Road, clearly. And if at all possible, they’d want it played in front of a crowd rather than behind closed doors. But it may be taken out of their hands.
That will be a Government call, ultimately. The safety of the Israel team and delegation, the security measures that will be needed, the protests that will invariably surround the game – all of these must be taken into account. Israel’s last two away games in World Cup qualifying were accompanied by clashes between police and protesters in both Oslo and Udine, with tear gas and riot shields involved. Does the Government have the stomach for all that?
On a brass-tacks level, is there a hotel in the country willing to put up with the attendant flak if they take a booking from the Israel football team on the first weekend in October? The GAA have had to face charges of hypocrisy and money-chasing in recent months for their association with Allianz, a company whose Irish operation is one that even their greatest detractors admit only has tangential links to Israel. What hotel group is going to want to walk into that sort of PR fire for the sake of a three-night stay?
All of this will have to be untangled in the months ahead and all of it will require strong leadership, careful handling and deft diplomacy from the FAI. Qualities that have not, it’s fair to say, historically been the association’s strong suit.
This is the FAI’s greatest test yet. It’s not a rogue official taking liberties with the company credit card or a chief executive getting paid in lieu of taking holidays. This is an international scale hot potato with the world watching.
They cannot afford to mess it up.