Some things are bigger than football
Now our men’s football team gets ready to travel to Hungary on 27 September 2026 and Serbia on 4 October 2026 to play Israel in the UEFA Nations League. These are two matches that should not be going ahead, writes Stephen Bowen, Executive Director at Amnesty International Ireland.
UEFA should long ago have suspended the Israeli Football Association (IFA) because ‘settlement clubs’ – clubs from illegally occupied lands in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) – continue to play in the Israeli leagues in brazen violation of FIFA’s statutes, which bind UEFA, and are in violation of international law.
The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has called for the IFA’s suspension by UEFA, and must continue to do so. Now is not the time to throw up their hands. Now is the time for courage. UEFA’s failure to do its job is sowing discord and division in Ireland.
After decades and decades of its unlawful occupation and cruel apartheid system, and with Israel’s genocide in Gaza continuing, can Israel again be allowed to sportswash its grave crimes against the Palestinian people? What a position to put our players and supporters in.
In March 2024, the Palestinian Football Association submitted a complaint to FIFA calling for sanctions against the IFA over anti-Palestinian racism in Israeli football, and inclusion of settlement clubs, breaching FIFA’s rules.
In March 2026, FIFA’s disciplinary committee fined the IFA for “multiple breaches” of its anti-discrimination obligations. On the question of the illegal settlement clubs, FIFA declared that it “should take no action given that… the final legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter under public international law”.
This is patently absurd, and FIFA’s contempt for its own rules and fair play is shocking. In 2024, the International Court of Justice unambiguously declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful, and its settlements illegal.
FIFA simply refused to enforce its own rules, blatantly flouting international law. FIFA and UEFA, by providing funding and economic and sporting opportunities for the IFA, sustain the illegal settlements that underpin the escalating ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
We know these matches are important to the Irish team and supporters, but the burden of FIFA and UEFA’s rule-breaking should not rest on their shoulders. The FAI needs to put maximum pressure on UEFA to comply with its own rules, and the FAI needs to make it clear it will not be part of this rule-breaking, and will not be tainted by it. Football should unite the world, and the IFA and FIFA/UEFA should not be allowed to divide it.
Let us not forget that Israel has also killed hundreds of Palestinian football players, including children. One of these victims was national team player Suleiman al-Obeid, known as the ‘Palestinian Pelé’, who was killed while trying to get food aid for his family in Gaza.
Amnesty International’s recent report, Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of West Bank, exposes how the Israeli Government has made formal annexation of Palestinian land an explicit policy objective.
We call on all states to impose targeted sanctions against directly implicated Israeli officials. Our government’s travel bans against Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir are welcome, but much more is needed.
During Ireland’s EU Presidency, we need the special privileges Israel enjoys under the EU-Israel Association Agreement to be suspended. Amidst a live-streamed genocide, we cannot say we did not know.
Amnesty International has documented Israel’s brazen impunity over decades, fuelled by the self-imposed powerlessness of governments, institutions, and individuals. For that impunity to end, we must stop playing pass the parcel. The time has come for everyone everywhere to act in accordance with their conscience and stand up for human rights. Because some things are bigger than football. Because humanity must win.
