“We are not playing with a Genocide” well actually we did

The last two weeks in Irish football have been compared with that of Saipan in terms of scandal. While the back pages of the paper would suggest this is correct I think it’s wrong to in anyway trivialise any of this. We aren’t discussing a manager and player having a major fallout we are talking about over 21,000 children being murdered, with the number continuing to rise daily.

I won’t hide the fact and it will be clear from the very start I did not want Ireland to take part in any fixture involving Israel. Much like the overwhelming majority of the Irish public this game of football was not something they wanted the country associated with. The FAI have been consistent in all this though, they have been a consistent failure.

Last November after a vote 74-7 in favour they formally requested that Israel be suspended from European competitions. This you would have assumed strongly suggested where the association stood in terms of any pairing with Israel. However, just 96 days after that vote Ireland were drawn against Israel in the Nations League. This left the FAI in an extraordinary position, they campaigned to have Israel suspended which UEFA refused to take any action and yet now must play that very country?

Unsurprisingly , the FAI were quick to announce they would fulfil these fixtures a commitment that went against the members of their own institution along with the people they claim to represent. The weeks leading up to these fixtures were about anything but football but the players remained as simply a backstory that was until the week before the first fixture when it was clear the FAI were unwilling to listen to everybody around them then the pressure began to grow on players.

Gavin Bazunu

I agree with those who have defended individual players, they should not have been put in the positions to choose to start with but let’s not pretend here this was in anyway a difficult decision, it wasn’t.

We have to be grown up here it isn’t about sides or what your opinion is on this or that, we have to look at the facts. This is a genocide, again not my opinion that’s a matter of fact “Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” – September 2025 United Nations.

Gavin Bazunu believed the facts were enough for him to not want to be associated with any of this, and bravely removed himself from selection quoting “my belief is based purely upon my personal belief that the innocent killing of people is wrong”.

While it was widely reported that many agreed with him and his stance in camp even a vote that saw 8 other players wish to boycott the game it still went ahead.

I did believe others would pull away Sunday morning but I was wrong, we of course had the meaningless gestures of heads bowed and black armbands, that the entire squad seemed to really get behind. Yet if they felt so strongly about all of this why play?

Although I was disappointed to see the fixture go ahead I’m a bigger person and can confess the coverage of these gestures did go worldwide and brought the right attention to the cause although I feel a boycott may well have set in motion a domino effect where UEFA could no longer hide and have to act.

Gavin Bazunu hasn’t been given enough respect, we can all agree that he should never have been put in this position like the rest but if the people in charge won’t make the right decision you then have to decide – what am I personally willing to be part of?

I’m not going to attack the players, we can only speculate what went on and contrary to what the FAI informed us of we now know it was not an “overwhelming” vote in favour of playing the game from players. It was a group of lads divided by what is right and what is wrong. The question is what do we expect of people when sports collide with something far bigger?

We are told that sports and politics are separate, but football associations make political decisions everyday, who they play, who they recognise, who they sanction and what causes they support. When the very real very present subject is the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians, including more than 21,000 children in Gaza it becomes increasingly difficult to pretend that stepping onto a pitch is simply about football.

If we are serious about standing on principle, then sometimes walking away is also a choice, and Gavin Bazunu showed that is was a choice someone could make.

We have completed our obligation and walked away with 4 points. Was it worth it? Absolutely not. Looking back at everything that has unfolded around the fixtures, it is difficult to see how anyone can describe the decision to fulfil these matches as anything other than a disaster for Irish football.

Then the game kicks off and is surrounded by even more drama, Adam Idah and the accusation of racist chants from Israeli fans, Israeli player accused of spitting at Irish management and the infamous press conference where an unreported accusation of racism against an Irish player turned the room into bedlam.

 

We have nobody to blame but ourselves for all of this, the FAI agreed to play alongside this country given everything we know about Ireland and how we as a proud nation have spoken out about the horrific treatment of Palestinians, and that hasn’t just been from the public our very own President and Taoiseach have condemned the actions of Israel. Now we are subject of news stories in certain parts of the world referring to us as racist, sectarian and all the rest, simply because we are appalled at the murder of children.

For me, this has been one of the darkest and most damaging few weeks in Irish football. Not because of the results, the football didn’t even factor into it for me. Whatever side of the political argument you stand on the facts are the facts, this is a genocide and the Irish football team represents us as a nation. As Irish manager Heimir Hallgrímsson said “we are not playing with genocide, we are playing against genocide”, well Heimir we actually did in fact play with a genocide.

Rachel Lynch a journalist from Dublin with InTallaght. She has supported Celtic her entire life with a home address of Celtic Park she didn’t have much choice. Her first memory as a child was the road to Seville and also her first team seeing the likes of Larsson, Thompson, Petrov, Sutton & Hartson. Some would say she was spoilt from the start with Celtic, she was….