How Ireland’s football chiefs sold their principles to play Israel

On September 27, the Irish government will officially announce their full and unconditional support for Israel. The corrupt cabal ruling Ireland successfully ‘debt-mailed’ the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) into making sure the men’s senior team travel to Hungary to face Israel in a UEFA Nations League match. Less than a fortnight later, Ireland will ‘host’ Israel for a return fixture…in Serbia. How is this happening?

FAI – A Background of Financial Incompetence and Funny Business

The Republic of Ireland’s governing body is a badly woven collection of warring clans, bankrupt businesses, and self-interested half-wits who qualify themselves as ‘football people’. In squandering two golden generations of Irish footballing talent (3 World Cups, 3 European Championships), they are almost solely dependent on government largesse for survival. They preside over youth clubs who historically and currently traffic young boys across to Britain for quick cash, denying the domestic senior league of local talent.

For decades, the FAI have wanted to clamp down on this practice, develop a long-term strategy for domestic growth, and support the full spectrum of men’s and women’s national teams. No matter who headed the organisation, short-term gain has been the main theme for those within the Irish game. A prime example being the Eircom Park project of the late ‘90s.

Having been tenants at the home of Irish rugby, Lansdowne Road [currently Aviva Stadium], for decades, the FAI decided to have a proper place of their own. Then association CEO Bernard O’Byrne, brought the Eircom Park dream to the brink of realisation, only for Irish rugby and the Irish government, supported by Irish media, to destroy the dream in favour of…the ‘Bertie Bowl’.

The ‘Bertie Bowl’, actual name ‘Stadium Ireland’ but nicknamed after the then Irish PM Bertie Ahern, was to be an 80,000 capacity stadium a 15 minute walk from my family home in Dublin. Ahern and his Fianna Fail [political party] deputies lobbied heavily within the FAI, the Irish rugby community did the same, and both were vocal in the media nationwide. In minutes from an FAI board meeting, it was recorded that the Irish sports minister, Jim McDaid, had offered almost $16 million to domestic clubs if they dropped support for Eircom Park.

With government, media, and their own members against them, the FAI council dropped the idea 15 months after it had been launched and went along with the ‘Bertie Bowl’. A short time later, the Stadium Ireland died a death and instead Lansdowne Road got the government funds, with the FAI given a loan by the government and various banks to be a 50:50 partner in the rugby ground’s redevelopment. Irish football continues to have no home and a huge debt to the Irish government for the refurbishment of the stadium, interestingly it’s a 1 minute walk from my former school. And that leads us to the upcoming games with Israel.

No to Russia, Yes to Israel

When UEFA floated the idea of allowing Russian children back into football competitions, the FAI were amongst the mob baying for blood and refusing to countenance such a concept. However, they were also one of the few football federations who reacted negatively to Israel’s response to the October 7 terror attack. In 2023, members of the association voted overwhelmingly (72-7) to bring a motion to UEFA to freeze Israeli teams and clubs from tournaments.

Therefore, it was inevitable that in February’s 2026-27 Nations League draw that Ireland would be drawn in a group with Israel. The other teams, Austria and Kosovo, will host Israel in Linz and Pristina respectively, while Ireland have their home match in Serbia. The Irish public, sporting and sensible, were unanimous that Ireland should refuse to play. Many within the game pointed out that the FAI had, three years earlier, wanted Israel frozen from Europe. Protests exploded at matches, as did insults towards those who worried about safety around the Autumn ties.

A month after the draw, the true motivator in Irish football came to the fore, as it had done in the ‘Bertie Bowl’ fiasco. A load of cash was put on the table. Fianna Fail, again, rode to the rescue – Israel’s. The party, who ruined the Eircom Park project, along with government partners Fine Gael, told the FAI that annual repayments on the bailout they’d received in 2020 would be slashed from $4.5 million to $1.7 million, with only $250,000 to be paid for 2026 and 2027. Since the government hold or control most of the $45 million owed by the FAI, they had the cards to play.

Even the minimal reporting of the move was undone by biased headlines, making it look like the FAI were blackmailing the government [Government agrees to give FAI extra time to repay €1.5m debt to ease financial pressure on association]. According to one sports journalist for an Irish daily newspaper, “in all my years reporting on Irish football, this was the most amazing case of arm twisting I’ve ever seen. It made the Eircom Park saga seem like Monty Python. It was debtmailing.”

The Irish government has been totally inconsistent in their attitude to nations at war. Regardless of their full-on aggression towards Russia and blind eye for Ukrainian war crimes, they have called out Israel for their excesses and not saved the rod on Hamas.

Yes, Ireland is a stopover for US military transports and can be reduced to financial rubble should US multinationals stop using it as a production or tax reduction base. Yes, Ireland has an increased issue with anti-Semitism from immigrants from countries who hold Israel in a less than flattering light.

No, Ireland is not an anti-Semitic. I was born in the ‘Jewish Quarter’ of Dublin, where our family doctor, Mr. Bratman, was Jewish. We had Jewish neighbours, a synagogue, a Jewish bakery beloved by my Mam, and a Jewish corner shop. My Mam’s parents sold produce from their market garden to observant Jews and my Grandad spoke warmly of “the old Jewish man” who would come to his pub every Tuesday evening for “a pint of stout and a chat.” We had and have Jewish elected representatives, indeed former Lord Mayor of Dublin Ben Briscoe was a member of the same boxing club as me and his daughter was my friend in university.

The Irish have produced the sixth President of Israel [Chaim Herzog] and the current President [Isaac Herzog]. In preparing my first Master’s thesis, I discovered a Jewish trader in my Dad’s home area of Louth…in the 13th century. Yet, our current government has caved to the fear of being labelled anti-Semitic when the safety of Irish and Israel players, officials, and fans should be first and foremost in their minds.

Israeli football teams and clubs should not, at this present time, be allowed in UEFA competition, nor should Russian. Not as an EU-style collective punishment for just being Israeli, but for the actual security concerns. There are harmless idiots who will look to get attention or cause a scene, whether from the pro- or anti-Israeli side. There are also harmful, evil people who care not a jot about the safety of human beings and will blow up, stab, or shoot us to a moment when the media will hoover up the misery porn.

The Irish government, the FAI, and Irish media have used the financial and competitive fear factor to justify fulfilling the fixtures against Israel, and have lied their backsides off. Estonia and Lithuania have refused to play teams from Belarus, in solidarity with Ukraine. The result? Technical losses of 3-0 for their teams, nothing more or less. While I believe that they are misguided in doing so, as every other nation has faced Belarus without issue, they are entitled to taking a moral stance. Yet the Irish public has been lied to about massive monetary fines, competition bans, and worse for taking a sensible, security-focused moral stance.

Ireland will play Israel this September and October, because the Irish government is terrified of being called anti-Semitic and the FAI are so heavily indebted that they will do what they’re told by that same government. The same association who wanted Israel out in 2023, voted just this month to play them with a 75-32 vote. The debtmail worked.

My Dad always said that the ‘football people’ in Ireland were all about the money, at every level. I used to argue the point, even though I’d experienced the corruption first-hand from youth level up to the national league. He’d ‘close’ our discussions by saying “they choose money over morals” and I’d seethe. If he were alive now, I wonder what he’d say. He might say, “I was right.” He might say, “You can’t ban countries as that’s collective punishment.” The same man used to bring groceries up to our elderly and infirm Jewish neighbour and still condemn Israel’s actions based on facts and reality. He might have listened to me about security and safety as being the drivers for boycotting the games this Autumn. And I’d make the point that ‘boycott’ is an Irish thing and that if there were ever a time to place morals above money, and safety above stupidity, it is now.