{"id":299616,"date":"2026-02-15T16:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T16:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/299616\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T16:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T16:55:09","slug":"irish-soccer-team-would-miss-out-if-israel-matches-were-boycotted-harris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/299616\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish soccer team would \u2018miss out\u2019 if Israel matches were boycotted \u2013 Harris"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s soccer team would be \u201closing out\u201d if matches against Israel were boycotted, the T\u00e1naiste has said.<\/p>\n

The Republic of Ireland were drawn this week in a group with Israel as part of the Uefa Nations League, prompting questions about whether the matches would be boycotted or pose security questions if they were played in Ireland.<\/p>\n

The two teams are due to play each other in the autumn: the away leg on September 27th and the home fixture on October 4th.<\/p>\n

\"SimonSimon Harris (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) said Ireland would fulfil the Israel fixtures, despite the FAI General Assembly voting overwhelmingly in favour of a motion mandating the governing body to call for Israel to be suspended from European competitions.<\/p>\n

The FAI then wrote to Uefa, European football\u2019s governing body, calling for Israel to be banned from its competitions.<\/p>\n

Republic of Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said last year he did not understand why Israel had not been banned from football, while former Ireland manager Brian Kerr said the FAI needed to \u201cshow a real bit of balls and refuse to play Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Football Association has said it was \u201choping to welcome\u201d the Ireland side to \u201ca sea of blue and white in a packed stadium\u201d in Israel, despite the fact they have been playing their home games at neutral venues in countries such as Hungary.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald said Ireland should not play the matches and Israel should be \u201cgiven the red card\u201d.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said: \u201cWe have to think this thing through here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all share, I think, a general disgust at the actions in the Middle East and the genocidal situation in Gaza, of that there\u2019s no doubt, and we\u2019ve been strong and clear on that as a country and as a government,\u201d he told RT\u00c9 Radio.<\/p>\n

\"RepublicRepublic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson (Liam McBurney\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to recognise, though, when it comes to soccer, and when it comes to the Irish soccer team, not doing anything that would actually disadvantage the team and wouldn\u2019t have any effect at all on Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur FAI, the people who run football in Ireland, made their views clear in relation to Israel\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cUefa, the governing body, made their decision. The actual country that would end up getting the red card here would be Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when grassroot clubs right around the country are beginning to cheer on the soccer team, with the World Cup playoffs coming, I don\u2019t want to see anything that distracts or indeed puts pressure. I\u2019ve been hearing lots about individual players should do this, that or the other \u2013 I don\u2019t want to be saying anything or doing anything that applies pressure to the men who put on the green jersey and represent our country with pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want to get behind them, and we have major games coming up in terms of the World Cup playoff, so our views on Israel are very clear in terms of their actions in Gaza, but we also need to be able to decouple that from sport and decisions that are made by sporting bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think in this situation, it\u2019s actually the Irish soccer team that would be losing out and the Irish soccer team that would be missing out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have to have that sort of perspective in relation to this, and we need to get behind our Irish soccer team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s soccer team would be \u201closing out\u201d if matches against Israel were boycotted, the T\u00e1naiste has said. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-299616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299616","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=299616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}