{"id":296386,"date":"2026-02-13T17:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/296386\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T17:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:54:11","slug":"taoiseach-says-ireland-against-israel-football-fixtures-should-proceed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/296386\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoiseach says Ireland against Israel football fixtures should proceed \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The forthcoming Ireland football matches against Israel should proceed, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said, despite calls for them to be boycotted. <\/p>\n

Political and sporting opposition to the Nations League game<\/a> quickly emerged after it was drawn on Thursday evening. <\/p>\n

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) confirmed it intended to fulfil the fixtures<\/a> as scheduled.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Friday, Martin said he believed the FAI had taken the correct decision. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope Ireland does well in the competition \u2013 the [Nations League] is a journey ahead of this Irish team. They have been doing very well so far and we wish them well,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He insisted the logistics of arranging the games were a matter for football authorities and it was not political, and switched focus to the humanitarian situation in Gaza. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no official boycott of Israel<\/a>. I must make that point from an Irish perspective,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now focusing on peace in the Middle East. The Rafah crossing [in Gaza] is open, but we would want it to be opened more broadly. [We need] comprehensive humanitarian aid and then we want to see the reconstruction of Gaza happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018It\u2019s not my decision if you play or not\u2019, says Hallgr\u00edmsson after Ireland draw Israel in Nations LeagueOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"RepublicRepublic of Ireland fans at the Aviva Stadium. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho <\/p>\n

He said people should distinguish between the actions of the Israeli government and its football team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been critics and have opposed very strongly Israeli government policy within Gaza in particular. We [also] condemned the Hamas<\/a> attack on Israel which was absolutely horrific.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin said there must also be an ability to distinguish between Israeli government policies and the people of the country. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is an important point \u2013 and I think sport is an area that can be challenging when it crosses into the realm of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> has criticised the decision. In a statement on Thursday its spokeswoman on sport, Joanna Byrne, said that in November the FAI voted to submit a motion to Uefa, the football governing body, to ban Israel from its European club and international competitions. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the correct moral and principled position to take,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, 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 \u2013 not in actions where it counts.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Malachy Clerkin: It\u2019s hard to be confident the FAI will rise to Ireland-Israel challengeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The forthcoming Ireland football matches against Israel should proceed, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said, despite calls for them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13446,3409,61,60,3410,1843,112],"class_list":["post-296386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-football-association-of-ireland-fai","tag-gaza-strip","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-micheal-martin","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}