Joanna Byrne: Calls to Stop Ireland v Israel Match

Minister, people all over this country, every week in their tens of thousands, proudly play and watch football in their communities and treasure every moment of it. Yet this is denied on a daily basis to those in Palestine and Gaza. At least 1,008 athletes, players and sports officials have been killed in the genocide and close to 300 sports facilities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank have been destroyed by Israel. There is no sport and infrastructure left, stadiums are obliterated. At least 10 Israel football clubs are known to be located in the occupied Palestinian territory in violation of the ICJ advisory opinion of July 2024 and article 64.2 of FIFA statute. As somebody who was born into a football family, took my first steps on my beloved club's football pitch and was hand-reared around my local football club, I find it completely incomprehensible that anybody believes our national team should line out against the terror state of Israel whilst this genocide is ongoing. The fact is Israel should not even be in the Nations League competition. UEFA should have expelled them as soon as they went into Gaza on a genocidal ethnic cleansing mission that has seen tens of thousands of innocents murdered, including hundreds of sportsmen and women. They should have been sanctioned long before that for their breaches and clubs in illegal settlements built on land stolen from Palestinians. Despite UEFA and FIFA being in contravention of their own rules, there's no sanctions, no expulsion and because they're both serving their own political interests, cozying up to US and Israeli governments. Sports cannot be separated from justice and humanity. We have an opportunity now to take a stand, activists, civil society and politicians alike. Anybody who says there is no place for politics in sport neither understands politics nor do they understand sport. Not only do we have an opportunity to take a stand, we have an obligation as politicians and as community leaders to make a stand because we are elected to act with morality. We cannot sit on the sidelines and watch as sporting bodies act selectively according to the politics favourable to their own interests. There is a history in this state and indeed in world football of participating in boycotts against nations that violate international law and sporting statutes. We know from apartheid South Africa the sports boycott was instrumental in bringing apartheid to an end. This international boycott of apartheid South Africa and the swift exclusion of Russia and Belarus by these sporting bodies sit in stark contrast to the current silence and inaction regarding Israel's egregious violations. It screams of double standards, it screams of hypocrisy and it legitimises occupation through football. It is abundantly clear that the Irish people do not want these matches to proceed while the Palestinian people are enduring a genocide, occupation and apartheid. Our Sinn Féin motion this evening calls on you as a government to support the calls of the Irish footballing community to stop the game on legal and moral grounds and to pave a clear pathway forward for the FAI to do the moral thing and refuse to participate in the nation's league fixtures against Israel. These calls are supported by the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland and the Irish Football Support Partnership, by trade unions, by the vast majority of Irish football fans and crucially by members and stakeholders of the FAI itself. In November, 93% of FAI members voted to instruct the association to call on UEFA to suspend Israel from international competitions and as recent as May, FAI General Assembly members secured the numbers to call an EGM to vote on Ireland's participation in this fixture. Governments are all over the place on this issue. First you support the matches proceeding, then you wash your hands of it and say it's a matter for the Football Association and then embarrassingly for you, both ministers publicly declared that you will not attend the matches, not because you have any moral qualms or because you want to show respect for international law, but because you've realised there's a major discontent around the country and it will inevitably reflect poorly on you. An Ireland Tinks poll commissioned by the Irish Sport for Palestine which was released today shows that 56% of Irish people surveyed do not want this match to proceed. In all your flip-flopping as to whether or not you will stand up and be counted, it heaps pressure on the boys in green, boys in green that just want to play football might I add, to make a personal decision between right and wrong and whether their own moral conscience will allow them to participate in such a fixture. It leaves them exposed, it leaves them vulnerable and no player should ever have to carry that burden. Minister, we are offering you the opportunity tonight to show real leadership. We're also calling on you to uphold your own obligations under international law. This is bigger than sport, this is bigger than a football match, but sport has the power to send a very strong message of morality. Israel actively uses football to support its image and to extend its territory whilst also committing genocide and implementing apartheid. Their slaughter of footballers and bombing of football pitches cannot be accepted or normalised. Frontline Israeli soldiers with blood on their hands lining out against our national team cannot be accepted or normalised. We need to stand firm on the consensus that sportswashing cannot be accepted or normalised. Ireland playing Israel normalises a genocidal regime and gives cover for statute violations, for apartheid and for war crimes. The narrative from government is all around sanctions, implications and consequences for the FAI should they refuse to fulfil these fixtures. But with the right support from government, they could be empowered to take a moral stance and rather than it damage them, I guarantee you it will enhance them and their standing. Sport will thrive, national confidence will grow and you could be on the right side of that. For a small country we are a mighty force when we come together, but the question tonight is, Minister, will you join us in ensuring that we stop the game? Or will you turn your back on Irish football, on our national team and hide from the sidelines? Our call is quite clear, not to move the game, but to simply stop it. The crux of the issue is not where the game should be played, but who is participating in the fixture. And as we debate this tonight, the people of Gaza endure starvation, bombardment, displacement and unimaginable human suffering. Does your conscience allow you to continue with and encourage business as usual? Because I know mine doesn't. I stand proud, true to the courage of my own convictions on this issue from day one and I believe that these fixtures should not proceed. For more UN videos visit www.un.org