{"id":491309,"date":"2026-06-09T21:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/491309\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T21:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:10:08","slug":"government-will-insist-it-has-no-role-in-sports-fixtures-in-response-to-calls-to-stop-ireland-israel-games-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/491309\/","title":{"rendered":"Government will insist it has no role in sports fixtures in response to calls to stop Ireland-Israel games \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calls by Opposition parties in the D\u00e1il for the Republic of Ireland\u2019s upcoming football matches against Israel<\/a> not to go ahead will be met with Government countermotions insisting it has no role in organising sports fixtures.<\/p>\n

The Football Association of Ireland<\/a> (FAI) said on Monday that a decision on potentially moving the home leg of the Nation<\/a>s League<\/a> game against Israel to a neutral venue will not be made until after the women\u2019s team World Cup<\/a> qualifier against France on Tuesday evening. <\/p>\n

There is to be a further FAI statement issued after the board meets again on Thursday.<\/p>\n

A Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> motion calling for the matches against Israel not to go ahead was to be debated on Tuesday evening. <\/p>\n

Party leader Mary Lou McDonald<\/a> has said \u201cmoving the game does not resolve the issue\u201d and \u201cthese fixtures should not proceed while the genocide in Gaza<\/a> continues\u201d. She said the Government must provide \u201cclear political leadership\u201d on the matter. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile the Social Democrats<\/a> will be proceeding with a D\u00e1il motion on Wednesday that calls on the Government to advocate for Israel to be excluded from all sporting competitions while \u201cthe genocide and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory continues\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet signed off on a plan to table counter motions to both Opposition motions. This is being done, according to a Government statement, as national governing bodies of sport like the FAI \u201care independent, autonomous bodies responsible for the governance of their own sports, including the organisation of sporting fixtures\u201d.<\/p>\n

The statement also said: \u201cThe Government and Sport Ireland have no role in determining or supporting the organisation of such fixtures.\u201d <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ministers were also briefed on the FAI\u2019s engagement with football authorities in Norway, Israel and Palestine on the upcoming matches. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0FAI and Government warned of judicial review over football fixtures with IsraelOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Norway hosted a match against Israel in Oslo last year and played the away leg of its World Cup qualifiers against Israel in Hungary. The Cabinet was told the FAI was in touch with the Norwegian football association to see if any learnings from its experience could be applied to preparations for Ireland\u2019s home leg of the fixture. <\/p>\n

Ministers also heard that the Israeli Football Association told the FAI it does not expect a significant number of Israeli fans to travel to Ireland for the fixture, should it be held in Dublin. <\/p>\n

The FAI was also said to be engaging with the Palestinian Football Association \u201cto gather its views on how to prepare for the match\u201d.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Labour leader Ivana Bacik<\/a> said the public want the Government to \u201ctake a stand against the normalisation of genocide through sport\u201d and to stop the game against Israel \u201cfrom going ahead anywhere in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> responded in the D\u00e1il, saying that under FAI, Uefa and Fifa rules \u201cnational football governance bodies must act independently and be free of political interference\u201d.<\/p>\n

He rejected calls for Government intervention in the match and said \u201ca series of countries have actually been suspended from international competition in the past because of political interference. That\u2019s the reality of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin agreed, however, at EU level \u201cwe should be dealing in a more robust and stronger way in terms of suspending the EU-Israeli trade association agreement<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calls by Opposition parties in the D\u00e1il for the Republic of Ireland\u2019s upcoming football matches against Israel not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13446,3409,61,60,3410,3657,3658,1843,59269,43,3415,1419,4018],"class_list":["post-491309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-football-association-of-ireland-fai","tag-gaza-strip","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-ivana-bacik","tag-mary-lou-mcdonald","tag-micheal-martin","tag-nations-league","tag-news","tag-sinn-fein","tag-social-democrats","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491309","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=491309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}