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

FiFA are members of the IOC and implemented IOC rules that apply to it as a member.

The CAS ruling centred on security concerns re: the Russian FA and the orderly running of competitions. It was very clear that the Russian FA were NOT responsible for their government invading Ukraine.

As things stand, there are no similar concerns over the Israeli FA. Their games are being played without much difficulty, albeit some are moved to alternative venues.

People need to set aside politics when thinking about this. There are plenty of precedents re: countries involved in war, human rights abuses etc etc playing in FIFA competitions. Iran is travelling to the USA for next months World Cup. DPRK has never been expelled. In the past, the USSR, who are beloved by many of posters on boards, were never banned.

This is not to say that FIFA or anyone else supports these countries - its the way world sport is organised.

But if Ireland is suspended by FIFA/UEFA, NOBODY will be allowed play them. Celtic are not going to take a ban from competitive football incl. Sciottish PL and CL, to play two friendlies against a banned Ireland.

You also over estimate the interest in meaningless friendly games.

But it demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of how sport works.

Believe it or not I am in agreement with you

The FAI is between a rock and hard place over this. If there are financial sanctions applied to the FAI, Eamon and Brian and others opposed to the games going ahead won't be underwriting the losses incurred to an organisation that is in dire straits financially. So that's why I am leaning towards having the game played. Hopefully Ireland repeat what they did against Grenada last night.

You’re allowed to post whatever you like but doesn’t mean people need to take you in any way seriously.

The people you argue against have some beliefs, express them and aren’t ashamed to state them. You just want to say “my beliefs aren’t relevant” despite you giving your opinions for pages and pages. If your beliefs are irrelevant why are engaging so much?

If you said you condemned the genocide but don’t believe that this is the best way to seek real change that would be something but you refuse to do that and instead deflect to “ivory towers”.

You make good points about Irish football and the pitfalls @Paddy_Mag but your other shtick makes little sense .

We live in a global system, stuff we use comes from everywhere. People living in the modern world and participating in it doesn't preclude them from voicing an opinion about a country committing a genocide without any sanction.

I wouldn't have a clue what countries "tech" is in my phone or laptop, should I? If I was playing an Israeli team I'd be for sure having serious reservations about it though, because it isn't at all the same thing.

Owning a laptop doesn't make it hypocritical to call out a country butchering tens and thousands of innocent people. Your pov would render anything to mere "virtue signalling" and surely you couldn't be that cynical.

Is your argument that we cant criticise Saudi or Iran because we use petrol? Can we not criticise Russia because we use natural gas? Or China because we use....well...anything? Id say 99% of Ireland was using British goods in some shape or form when we were fighting them for independence, where does that leave the WOI?

And even still what is going on in Gaza is different to these countries and scenarios because almost all international investigators/ aid organizations/ human rights groups on the ground are telling us this is genocide, as if we didn't know it already. And nobody is doing anything about it due to fear - but this will make the world so dangerous for us all if this becomes normalized.

To add legs to the analogies, the Nazis and Japanese horrific experiments on their captives which yielded medical discoveries, should we not take certain lifesaving vaccines, for example, because of their evil origins? Is it virtue signalling to get a cholera vaccine and say the holocaust was wrong? Obviously I'm exaggerating but it's the same logical argument.

There is a symbolism behind playing an international match that is different than participating in modern life. If you don't use a phone because it has Israeli tech, who cares.
However, if country A pulls out an international fixture at a serious potential cost to itself (as you are spelling out here well imo), due to a genocide country B getting away scott free with committing genocide, that does matter.

Israel aren't doing all these hijinks at the Eurovision because they don't care about their reputation. It matters deeply and them getting away with this requires everybody to stay in line.

And I actually agree we should fulfill the fixture btw, though would 100 percent understand if the players and staff didn't want to.

Well I don't think you come across like that from what ive seen , but some of the other people backing you up are of an assortment of oddballs on this site supporting Israel mass killing, and slurring people (and this country) for speaking up about it or showing the most basic level of humanity towards Palestinians. I'm sure you are incorrectly getting tarred with the same brush.

Even still - the arguments against the big playing aren't the same as using a laptop or phone - the symbolism of not playing is damaging to Israel and they'd be **** it if more countries followed, or Ireland's stance gained traction with Irish America - hence their shameful slandering of our country that they engage in, above all others who are even more critical than us.

They aren't a massive, highly resourced country like Russia or Iran who can go it alone, they need the acceptance and support of the West far more.

But you make good points of course the fate of the FAI and staff will have to factor into ay decision.

You are not wrong about hitting Israel in the pocket too - there is a law sitting with the government that targets Israeli made goods on occupied land that would do just that. But we get similar stories about how virtue signalling it is etc. from these same people, so would think people assume you are at more of the same.