3
On Thursday the Republic of Ireland football team drew Israel in the upcoming UEFA Nations League. Despite the fact that FAI membership voted to submit a motion to UEFA to ban Israel from its European club and international competitions last November, FAI leadership released a statement indicating that they intend to fulfil the fixtures.
Daniel Lambert, the chief commercial officer of Bohemians FC, who proposed the motion at the FAI general assembly, has rightly noted the unfairness that has allowed the FAI, the national team, and the fans, to be put in this position by UEFA, an organisation that has consistently refused to follow its own rules. Israel has been in breach of both UEFA and FIFA statutes where the penalty is suspension and expulsion from the organisations for quite some time now.
According to the Palestinian Football Association, Israel has now killed upwards of 350 Palestinian football players, including “the Palestinian Pele” Suleiman Al-Obeid, and destroyed 300 sports facilities in both Gaza and the West Bank. Israel fields six teams on illegally occupied Palestinian land in direct contravention of FIFA and UEFA rules, and a significant number of IDF soldiers and reservists currently engaged in the genocide in Gaza play for, and support, Israeli football teams at all levels.
Further to this, only a few weeks ago Israel issued a demolition order for the Aida Youth Centre’s football pitch in Bethlehem. This pitch and its attendant facilities serve over 250 young people every week and it is one of the only spaces young Palestinian football players in Bethlehem are able to train. Israeli apartheid places significant restrictions on the ability of Palestinians to travel and compete in sporting events and this demolition order is but another development in the systemic destruction of Palestinian society under apartheid and colonialism. While the demolition has been postponed there is no guarantee that Israel, a state which continues to flaunt international law in the pursuit of genocide, will not simply return at a later date and demolish the pitch anyway.
Despite all of this, UEFA and FIFA continue to normalise Israel’s participation in international competitions and threaten to fine or discipline any teams who refuse to fulfil fixtures against Israel. The example that is often presented as a way to highlight UEFA and FIFA’s hypocrisy is their banning of Russia from international competition in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
While such a double standard is a useful one to emphasise, it is important to note that UEFA and FIFA did not suspend Russia from their organisations out of a moral obligation or political commitment to the Ukrainian people. They did so due to twelve nations refusing to fulfil upcoming fixtures against the Russian national team. Faced with disciplining twelve teams for refusing to play, and thus collapsing the world-cup qualifying play-offs set to take place, the organisations chose instead to expel Russia. Of the three bans handed down by FIFA and UEFA for political reasons two were brought about through boycotts: Russia and apartheid South Africa.
It is clear that UEFA and FIFA will not expel Israel out of the goodness of their hearts or out of any notion of solidarity with the Palestinian people. To them, football is an apolitical game that exists above and outside of larger questions such as apartheid, inequality, state violence, or genocide. They parrot the truism that football has the power to “bring everyone together” as a cover for a complete and total disregard for human life in favour of profit. They will only relent if the very continuation of their international competitions is jeopardised through boycotts.
While the Irish have a history of boycotting apartheid, the heroic Dunnes Stores workers being the most prominent example, we do not have the same positive history when it comes to international sporting competitions. In 1981 the Irish Rugby Football Union defied a worldwide sporting boycott on South Africa and sanctioned a tour of the country despite condemnation from the anti-apartheid movement and across the political spectrum in Ireland. This was, and is, a great shame and while rugby and football are very different sports with historically different fan bases, we must be conscious and aware of the ease with which a nation can become complicit in atrocity through engaging in “apolitical” sporting events or perceiving sport itself as “beyond politics.”
This line was rolled out by Micheál Martin when he argued that the fixtures should go ahead and stated that “people have to distinguish between the Government of Israel and its policies and the people of Israel”. In separating the national team of a country committing genocide from the Government, Martin is utilising the broader tactic deployed by numerous liberal politicians that places the blame for the genocide solely at the feet of the current Israeli government rather than recognise that the Israeli state itself is built on genocide, displacement, and apartheid. Martin’s resistance to a boycott speaks to the Irish establishment’s general unwillingness to stand up in any substantial way to the Zionist state and its American backers. The Irish government are very happy to decry the genocide with paltry words while maintaining a very material support for western imperialism.
Despite the FAI and the Taoiseach arguing that the matches should go ahead, the Irish national team’s head coach, Heimir Hallgrimsson, has said it would be a decision for individual players whether they felt comfortable playing in the matches against Israel. While we understand the difficult position the team has been put in by UEFA’s indifference to the genocide, these matches must be boycotted across the board in order to send a clear message. We will not be complicit in sportswashing and we will not allow Israel to continue to flaunt international laws and statutes without accountability.
A boycott initiated from below by supporters has the potential to create a domino effect that will reach players, coaching staff, and the FAI itself, as well as help prove the efficacy of boycotting Israel on a larger societal scale. Football is political and it can, and should, be a force for good. Israel must be expelled from all competitions, it must be isolated, and we must refuse to allow a genocidal apartheid state to be normalised through sporting competition.