JAMES McCLEAN HAS added his voice to those calling for a boycott of Ireland\u2019s Uefa Nations League fixtures against Israel later this year.<\/p>\n
The Derry City player, who has been capped 103 by Ireland, said the fixture \u201cshould never be going ahead\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yesterday, it emerged that several high profile figures in Irish football have written an open letter to the FAI calling for a boycott of the game.<\/p>\n
The letter, which has been sent by the Stop The Game group, has been signed by several captains and high-profile players of League of Ireland clubs including Roberto Lopes (Shamrock Rovers), Dawson Devoy (Bohemians), Joe Redmond (St Patrick\u2019s Athletic) and P\u00e1draig Amond (Waterford), cites Israel\u2019s \u201cclear and ongoing breaches of Uefa and Fifa statutes regarding Israeli teams playing on occupied Palestinian lands\u201d, and \u201cbrutal system of apartheid and acts of genocide\u201d in calling for the FAI to boycott the fixture.<\/p>\n
The FAI have so far resisted calls for a boycott, saying they are bound by Uefa\u2019s rules to play the game, and say a failure to do so could result in Nations League relegation and negatively affect Ireland\u2019s world ranking and prospects for qualification for future tournaments.\n<\/p>\n
Turmoil<\/p>\n
Today on Instagram McClean questioned the \u201cbackbone\u201d within the FAI, while saying the matter of whether or not to play the game should not be in the hands of the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tough one in fairness for the players and I get it, it\u2019s an opportunity to play a football game for your country,\u201d he said, adding the decision should be \u201ctaken out of the hands\u201d of players.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimply the game should never be going ahead, if there is one country which should recognise oppression and the turmoil that brings then it\u2019s Ireland . . . although with the decision makers in this country you\u2019d be mistaken to think we never had any history of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Lynn Boylan, the Sinn F\u00e9in MEP for Dublin, today launched a scarf for Irish football fans to show their opposition to the game against Israel.<\/p>\n
The first scarf was presented to her party colleague, Joanna Byrne, who was removed from her position as chairperson on Drogheda United earlier this year, after she also urged Ireland not to play the nations league game against Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cUefa rightfully banned Russia after their illegal invasion of Ukraine, it\u2019s long overdue that they do the same to Israel for their heinous actions in Gaza and the West Bank,\u201d Boylan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JAMES McCLEAN HAS added his voice to those calling for a boycott of Ireland\u2019s Uefa Nations League fixtures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,190677,43,20643,3405],"class_list":["post-437304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-israel","tag-news","tag-protest","tag-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437304","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=437304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}