A Buncrana Councillor says that Ireland should withdraw from the UEFA Nations League, if Israel is not expelled from the competition.<\/p>\n
Sinn Fein Councillor Jack Murray has made the call, after last night\u2019s draw placed Ireland in the same group as Israel, as well as Austria and Kosovo, in League B of the competition.<\/p>\n
The FAI were one of several international football federations to urge UEFA to expel Israel from its international competitions last year, due to the ongoing Palestinian genocide.<\/p>\n
However, both the European football governing body, as well as FIFA, have rebuffed those calls, and Israel remain eligible to compete in both UEFA and FIFA competitions.<\/p>\n
After Ireland were drawn against Israel in the Nations League, meaning that the Irish men\u2019s team will have to play Israel at home and away, Cllr Murray says that the FAI should withdraw Ireland from the competition if UEFA isn\u2019t willing to take action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have supported the Irish international soccer team all my life,\u201d the Councillor said on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been to countless international home games \u2013 my first was with my da against West Germany when I was a 3 year old. Over the years I\u2019ve also travelled to watch them in Georgia, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Russia, Denmark and Estonia. I\u2019m planning to travel to Czechia next month for our world cup qualifying game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love our national team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust now though, the Nations League draw has been complete and we\u2019ve been placed in the same group as Israel.\u00a0 If that goes ahead, then I firmly believe that we should withdraw from the competition completely. We cannot allow the sportswashing of a genocidal state on Irish soil.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says he wants the FAI to make \u201ca real stand\u201d on the issue of Israel\u2019s continuing competition in international sport, whilst the same state is in the midst of committing a genocide.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am so proud that the FAI overwhelmingly called for the expulsion of Israel from UEFA last year. Now we have the opportunity to go further,\u201d the Councillor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a chance to make a real stand and tell the world that Ireland is horrified at the continuing crimes against humanity that continue in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael should not be allowed to participate in UEFA. They should not be allowed to act like a normal country. And if they try, then we should not facilitate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buncrana Councillor wants Ireland to withdraw from Nations League over Israel draw was last modified: February 13th, 2026 by Daniel Brennan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Buncrana Councillor says that Ireland should withdraw from the UEFA Nations League, if Israel is not expelled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-297338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297338","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=297338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}