The question of whether Ireland should play against Israel in the Nations League appears academic, as the FAI has already stated they will fulfil the fixtures, which Taoiseach Micheál Martin describes as “the correct decision”.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald disagrees: “The FAI needs to do the right thing and boycott these fixtures and send a powerful message to the rest of the world ... Israel should not be in this competition. Uefa correctly expelled Russia from all club and international competitions following the invasion of Ukraine and the same standard should be applied to Israel.”
The point about the apparent double-standard in the treatment of Russia and Israel has been made many times and it is worth analysing. Why was Russia banned from football, and Israel not?
In September 2023, Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin said that “Uefa’s continuing suspension against Russian adult teams reflects its commitment to take a stand against violence and aggression”.
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But Uefa and Fifa did not jointly decide to suspend Russia because of their shared stance against violence and aggression. They did it because they had been placed in an otherwise impossible position by the direct action of member countries.
In February 2022, the Russian national team was preparing to face Poland in the 2022 World Cup playoffs, due in March. If they beat Poland, they would face either Sweden or Czech Republic in the playoff final.
But on February 24th, Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On February 26th, the Polish and Swedish FAs announced that their teams would refuse to play against Russia. On February 27th, the Czech FA announced they too refused to play against Russia.
Only then, on February 28th, did Uefa and Fifa declare Russia’s suspension. What else could they do? Disqualify Poland, Sweden and the Czechs and hand Russia a bye to the World Cup?
If Poland, Sweden and Czech Republic had not acted as they did, it’s quite possible that Fifa and Uefa would have continued as though nothing were happening. “War is regrettable but football unites the world,” etc.
Remember that by that point, the Russo-Ukrainian war had already been ongoing for eight years – that’s why the escalation of February 2022 is described as the “full-scale” invasion. They had been kept apart in the playoff draw for this very reason. Yet even as the conflict simmered, Russia had hosted the 2018 World Cup and Ukraine the 2018 Champions League final, while the 2022 Champions League final had been awarded to St Petersburg.
The Gaza conflict exploded on October 7th, 2023, when Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis. By early February 2024, Israeli forces had killed a reported 28,000 Palestinians. On February 9th, 2024, Uefa general secretary Theodore Theodoridis was asked why Israel had not been suspended as Russia was.
“They are two completely different situations between the two countries,” he said. “Don’t forget the start of the war ... and the start of what is happening now ... in the Middle East.” Theodoridis’s point here appeared to be, essentially, “Hamas started it”. But another difference with Russia was that none of Israel’s football opponents had refused to play against them.
By August 2025, Uefa’s attitude was shifting. At the Super Cup between PSG and Spurs, Uefa displayed banners reading: “Stop Killing Children, Stop Killing Civilians”. In September 2025, a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Towards the end of that month, the London Times reported that Uefa sources were saying a move to suspend Israel was under way.
Then, on September 29th, US president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced the Gaza peace plan. The ceasefire came into effect on October 10th. The mood at Uefa flipped from “suspend Israel” to “give peace a chance”.
Fifa, as everyone knows, were so enthusiastic about the peace plan’s prospects that in December, president Gianni Infantino presented Trump with the Fifa Peace Prize.
As Infantino told Sky News: “I mean, how many – 60,000 people were killed, died, in Gaza?” (Infantino was underreporting the numbers killed, which currently stand at more than 73,000 Palestinians, and more than 2,000 Israelis). “And then it stopped. It did stop.”
“It stopped.” What stopped? The illegal expansion in the West Bank has not stopped. The killing has not stopped. On Sunday it was reported that 11 Palestinians were killed in two separate air strikes in Gaza. According to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 600 people have been killed since the ceasefire went into effect. That would be an average of between four and five killings a day since, in Infantino’s words, “it stopped”.
In the same interview, Infantino said he would like to see a ban on bans: “I even think we should look into our own statutes as Fifa, in the future, and see whether we should not enshrine in our statutes that we should actually never ban any country from playing football because of the acts of their political leaders. Because somebody needs to keep the ties open.”
This places him at odds with the Irish football community, which made clear in the general assembly vote at last November’s FAI emergency general meeting (egm) that it did not think Israel should be permitted in Uefa competitions.
That, of course, is a different question to whether Ireland should play against Israel if drawn against them. What might be the consequences of refusing to play?
On the football front, Uefa would declare Ireland had forfeited the two games against Israel. That might well be the extent of the immediate football punishment, since Uefa is itself in a questionable legal position, having failed to enforce its own rules against Israeli breaches, which was the whole basis of November’s egm vote.
Football, though, is the least of it. Israel fears sporting isolation and would react furiously against an Irish boycott.
Ireland would quite likely have to face this alone. Poland’s direct action against Russia was effective because it was immediately backed by Sweden and Czech Republic. It’s hard to see the other countries in Group B3, Austria and Kosovo, backing an Irish boycott. Austria has been among Israel’s stronger European supporters through the Gaza genocide. Kosovo, which was the first country to play against Israel after October 7th, owes its independence to Nato’s 1999 bombing of Serbia, and seems unlikely to pursue any action that would anger Washington.
And boycotting Israel would anger Washington. The day the FAI general assembly voted on the Israel motion, Republican senator Lindsey Graham went on X to threaten punishment: “If these attacks against Israel continue, I will do everything in my power to make those who participate in this effort to marginalise Israel in sports, and elsewhere, pay a heavy price when it comes to access to the American economy.”
Just as FAI’s independence is compromised by its debts, much of which are owed to Uefa and Fifa, the Irish Government’s independence is compromised by economic reliance on US multinationals, which means threats such as Graham’s have to be taken seriously.
In summary: a boycott would probably be lonely, expensive, ineffective in terms of sparking wider action against Israel, and frowned upon by the governing bodies, with wider risks that are hard to predict.
And yet, it’s always easy to talk yourself into doing nothing. Despite all these risks, a boycott may still be what a majority in Irish football want. That is why the FAI board and the Government will not want the question to go back before the FAI general assembly, and also why it should.
