Ireland vs Israel - To play or not to play, that is the question Read OP for Mod Warning

The amount of support the FAI are getting here for their decision vs the support our female basketballers got a few years ago is truly stunning

Im going to speak plainly.

It shows a huge lack of loyalty to Ireland to Irish history and to the Irish people on behalf of Irish football players and the FAI.

They are not at all patriotic. Probably if you want to play israel you should not be putting on the green jersey in the first place because you are not really playing for ireland.

Whatever happens we all know they are not playing for ireland at all… and those who support them as a team in my mind are not my fellow countrymen respectfully. They have no knowledge of the Irish struggle and neither do football fans.

I was talking to a guy from liverpool recently and he said he disliked when people NOT from liverpool support them because it means the team caters more to outsiders than the people of the city. He said they dont understand the mindset and the history. And I laughed and said hey lots of us Irish really dont like when Irish fans support Uk teams instead of home teams. He laughed at that. I thought if only they knew what the UK fans thought of them. And then I was thinking maybe Irish football fans don't get Irish history or mindset either.

I have to say this is why the FAI doesnt respect Irish fans .. they let them do whatever. Zero backbone and hardly fans to be taken seriously which is why the team does badly.

Sorry if this is harsh but its true.

Having been to Liverpool many times I can confidently say you are talking rubbish. Liverpudians are very proud of their football teams (Liverpool and Everton) and love it when people support them : it bring a lot of tourism and money in to the business too. A lot of Liverpool has Irish ancestry - of couse they do not hate Liverpool supporters from Ireland.

The Irish soccer team has not done too badly considering we have a population only a tenth or twelfth of England or Germany or whoever. We are small, just as Irrael is small in the middle east. It is only a thousanth of the land area of the middle east and is surrounded by Muslim countries. Politics should be kept out of sport, of course we should play other countries. Teams who bring politics and religion in to sport like Celtic are not great for society.

You're not Irish as you said on another thread so yes they are not your fellow countrymen.

Your post is pure nonsense and has nothing to do with the Israel match.

Sport receives state funding irrespective of the sport and irrespective of the political party or parties in government at the time. The thinking is, it is only pocket money in the overall scheme of things and it is good to keep people off the streets / healthy.

Russia invaded Ukraine out of the blue, without provication. In contrast, Israel invaded Gaza ( which it had withdrawn from 2 decades earlier) because it had been reapeatidly attacked from Gaza, culminating in the Oct 7th attack.

So of course Ireland should play Israel. It defended itself. By it attacking neighbours who attack it, that is a deterrent to future attacks.

I did not say I support Israel. I am saying you are hypocritical if you do not want to play Israel but see nothing wrong in playing other countries from the middle east who are not as democratic, who supress rights for women, gays etc.

How many countries boycotted the World cup in Quatar? If we qualified would we have gone?

Political parties are not allowed in Quatar.

Public prayer for non-Islamic faiths is typically forbidden. Isralies are not allowed visit. Rights for women, gays etc leave a lot to be desired. Yet there are hundreds of Mosques in Israel and the number is rapidly growing. And you have no problem with Quatar for example, just Israel?

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For a start, there's no U in Qatar.

Secondly can you point out where I said or even hinted you have no problem with Quatar for example?

Making up things that posters never said isn't exactly posting in good faith, why do this?

If you want to discuss Qatar we can do so in an appropriate thread, similarly Iran or Gaza, that is if you actually want a discussion and not just championing Israel.

The only "harsh but true" is that Ireland will play Israel. As much as it will disgust those advocating a boycott that we wont just gift Israel 6 points.

Hopefully it'll be Ireland that take all 6 points from Israel and we can offer sympathies to the boycotters.

You do realise, that in the real world, people can support the idea of a boycott, but also understand the reasons the FAI have to fulfil the fixtures purely from a necessity POV. They have to prioritise their obligations to the people within their own organisation. Its peoples livelihoods at stake and the over riding priority for the FAI is their own people. First and foremost.

And as you have acknowledged, Israel has powerful support from western countries. Those countries wont give a flying fcuk what the FAI do.

Why did the FAI motion to UEFA get pretty much no support last year? I think that's indicative of the lie of the land currently.

The FAI boycott the games, Israel get 6 points, everyone else carries on as normal. The FAI and their staff lose out and Israel laughs at us. But something something South Africa 40 years ago