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Chapter 1: What is the background of the Ireland vs Israel Nations League match?
Hey there, we are Indosport with me, John Molloy. We cover sport and we have things like this.
If you ask Arsenal's defenders, Gabriel and Saliba, to play in that PSG team or that Bayern team, they would be exposed as much as those centre-backs were last night. Because effectively, the attackers were on top. Then you ask the question, how many defenders were actually on the pitch last night? Because none of the full-backs have no interest in defending. They're like wingers.
And I've seen Saliba and Gabriel in an open game in that League Cup semi-final doubleheader against Newcastle last season get torn apart by Izak. I won't have anyone convince me that they can defend in that space.
Tessa, this is the first time in seven years that a new programme is being released every Thursday with stories and stories to tell you about Eran Oles.
I'm very happy to be here. It was like I was talking to Stephen McCullough. It was like I was talking to the audience team. I thought it was something that was going to happen in the future and it was going to happen in the future. The press came to Belfast Telegraph and they didn't have a cast because they didn't know that they didn't have a cast.
So they didn't have a cast in that story because they didn't have a role in Belfast Telegraph.
Seachtain. The end of the story.
This is an Irish Independent Podcast.
I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I've got a heart. I know the difference between right and wrong. So it's, I mean, if I ask you the same question, I'm sure you'll use the same opinion of what's happening. It's awful. It's extremely sad. And... And it's a very difficult position for the players to be in. I don't think we should be in this position. Absolutely not. Ireland versus Israel.
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Chapter 2: What are the current sentiments and protests surrounding the match?
For logistical reasons, people need to know where they're going and tickets and fans and all that. So basically, this week is crunch time. The FAI need to make a decision. Are we fulfilling the fixture? And if so, where is it being played? And that needs to be put in a calendar. And thus far so, the FAI are saying we're going to play.
Yeah, like so very soon after that, as in within minutes of the draw being made, the FAI released a statement to say that they would be fulfilling this fixture. And in fact, two of the most high ranking FAI officials were present at the draw. Paul Cook, who's the FAI president, and David Carell, who's the chief executive.
And both of them refused media interviews at the time and left the manager, Hamer Halgrimson, as the sole spokesperson for Irish football.
Well, it's a tough group. And it was always going to be a tough group for us. Austria, obviously, maybe the hot runner, qualified really early for the World Cup. And Israel, always a tough opponent. There's a lot of things outside football as well when we play them. So trying to stick to the football side of it.
But that position has not changed since February. What probably has changed is... Well... Look, it depends on how shocked people were by the tennis ball protests the other night against Qatar.
I'm not sure... Tell us about that then.
Ireland played Qatar in an end of season friendly in Lansdowne Road and some fan groups who were very opposed to the Israel fixture going ahead protested by throwing tennis balls on the pitch. They have done this before and it's a stop the game protest. There are a large body within Irish football...
who don't want these games to go ahead, that we should make an ethical protest, that we should not play and fulfill the fixtures against Israel. And it stopped the game the other night on several occasions. That was a very low-key fixture and it's still several months out from the Israel game.
And on the one hand, I think the perception of what has happened since was that it has forced the FAI to reconsider whether they're going to play that game in Dublin, whatever about playing the fixtures at all. But I just find it hard to believe that anybody was sort of shocked by the level of protests. My own sort of take on it is that in February...
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Chapter 3: What are the potential consequences of not playing the match?
So options then are fulfill the fixture in Dublin. don't fulfill the fixture at all or go to a neutral country, that's a possibility?
Yeah, like a lot of Israel's international games, not just in football and basketball and lots of different sports have been played in neutral venues. International sporting bodies aren't oblivious to what's happening, which is why they have mandated Israel to play their own home games in foreign countries.
But generally speaking, they have travelled away from home to fill the fixtures that they played. And the Israeli FA were on the record straight away after the draw to say that they were quite happy to travel to Dublin to play this game. I'm not an expert, but I can just see the level of opposition that would be... We've had 35,000 people protest in Dublin just in solidarity with Palestine.
We've never had the concentration... of focus that a visiting Israeli team would have coming to Dublin. And particularly with a line of sight of whatever it is 120 days down the tracks, that would be an incredibly inflammatory sort of an occasion. And you have issues over Travelling delegation have to stay in a hotel in the state. I think it's 48 hours beforehand.
You would have issues over hotels. Who's going to take that booking? The SIP2 workers in Dublin Airport who've already voted against this. So there's a huge opposition against playing Israel in any capacity.
The security alone, not just in the stadium, but around the stadium and the routes to the stadium. As you say, it will be a draw of attention to one specific time and location.
Yeah, and that's the reason that I feel that the FAO have been left in a very tricky position on this fixture. Ultimately, it's up to them to fulfill the fixture or not. But I still think the government could have stepped in in February when this draw was made or at some stage since and say, this game can't go ahead in Dublin.
I don't believe that there's government ministers in there that genuinely believe that it is preferable for this game or even viable to go ahead in Dublin, given the level of protest that it's obviously got to attract.
Yeah, I mean, more than tennis balls, you'd have to say. Yeah, that'll be the problem there.
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Chapter 4: How does the FAI plan to address the match logistics?
The team has momentum, whatever that means. But they have a kind of upward trajectory for the first time in five or six years. And I think there's a kind of collective unity in that team where they will want to speak their mind in a very collective way. I don't see it being that kind of splintered that players will go off and make their own stances.
But just that question of who this should be on to make the stand. Whether it's the government of Ireland or the FAI or UEFA, it definitely isn't the Irish football team.
If they're called up for international duty and the FAI tell them that there's a game to be played, it's a very difficult and unfair sort of burden, like a moral burden to face them with, to expect them to make their own judgment.
And then on that point, so what are the consequences then if the FAI turn around and say, OK, we're not playing the game?
Yeah, so there's been a fair bit of, I won't say scaremongering, as per the UEFA rules, you're in concession of the points, which would be six points in a table where there's a maximum of, what, 18 points up for grabs. So that wouldn't be insignificant. I'm not sure that Ireland are at a place where we'd necessarily fancy our chances of taking maximum points against Kosovo or Austria.
It's also stated within the rule that you risk expulsion from the competition itself. Now it doesn't say automatic expulsion. And I think given the kind of sensitivities involved here, it's unlikely that UEFA would be too stringent on Ireland.
But you have to remember as well, like with Ireland being the next co-host of Euro 2028, you know, the kind of upper echelons of the FAI are kind of moving in these UEFA circles now. And It's a difficult thing for them to be taking a stand. I don't think they would feel that it would reflect well on Ireland to be disqualified from the Nations League.
So it's kind of a political capital thing. We're not a big enough country and we've been coming with the begging bowl to UEFA in recent years.
Yeah, and like Ireland is usually, the FAI is usually reliant on UEFA handouts, even just to service some of their debt. And, you know, with the Euros coming here, there's a great opportunity for the FAI to have a once-off situation
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Chapter 5: What has been the reaction from Irish football authorities?
Russia are banned. There is no document anywhere, no official declaration as to specifically which rule they broke. Presumably, the idea is there to see how transferable that breach of rule is to what Israel has done. the motion to bring that to UEFA passed by 74 to 7 with two abstentions.
Yeah, so this is not just a balls thing.
No, this is a huge, huge overwhelming groundswell within Irish football. And so there is going to be an EGM of that same assembly. The sort of precursor to it is that they're going to specifically call on the FAI not to fulfill the two fixtures against Israel. This is not going to UEFA with anything.
This is to give the FAI a message that the football family, as you might call it, are against fulfilling these fixtures. But it would be a non-binding proposal. The FAI executive ultimately are the people who will make the call on this. And they seem to be sort of being very much left to their own devices by the people above them, be it UEFA or the Irish government.
Okay, so your hunch at this stage is Ireland versus Israel, the home fixture. It will go ahead, but your question mark is where?
Yeah, I don't think it will happen in Dublin. I don't think it will happen in Dublin. Part of me would like almost... like voyeuristically, like to see what would happen if it went ahead in Dublin, because it would be a very serious political movement, I would have thought. Not a political movement so much as an activist movement.
Like I know a lot of people from a lot of different kind of political backgrounds or inclinations who would all be very strong against Israel coming to town and for their flag, as Richie Sadler said on the television the other night, their flag to hang from the rafters in Lansdowne Road and the anthem to ring out. But I don't think that's viable.
And I don't think it has been viable since the fixture was first announced in February. So I don't think there's any chance that it will happen in Dublin. And I think from the FAI position, and given that they are being left isolated to make this decision, I think moving the game to a neutral venue is probably the path of least resistance insofar as there are no sanctions.
They don't have to explain themselves to UEFA. UEFA would not have any particularly big issue with the game being moved to a neutral venue. And it would just take... If not the sentiment away, definitely the sting away from the Irish public protests in that there won't be that singular event. It won't be a hotel on the south side of Dublin or a bus journey to Lansdowne Road.
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