Pressure to boycott upcoming Nations League games against Israel over that country’s actions in Gaza took its toll on the Ireland team Saturday when players talked for hours, voted on their participation, and one departed the squad.
Ireland is co-hosting the 2028 European Championship with England, Wales and Scotland. “As you can understand, this new variable required time and deliberation for the rest of the squad to consider. “It’s an ongoing discussion and we haven’t come to a kind of conclusion on this, but we are going ahead, the game is going ahead, we’re going to train. That followed widespread calls to boycott the match, and the FAI’s own motion the previous November calling on UEFA to ban Israel from club and international competitions. The FAI had resisted calls to boycott the matches, arguing the team could be hit with punishing sanctions by UEFA.
“A player expressed their discomfort with fulfilling this fixture to the head coach and indicated their intent to withdraw from the squad,” David Courell, the CEO of the Football Association of Ireland, told journalists in the rescheduled press conference. “Based on that, the association took the decision on behalf of Irish football that this fixture would continue as we have always intended to fulfill the fixtures,” Courell said. Goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu reportedly told the team Friday night that he did not want to play. His name was not mentioned in the press conference, but Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said a player was leaving the squad. “All the rest of the players are training today,” Hallgrimsson said. Courell said the players were uncomfortable dealing with questions “that are not about football” so they had requested not to have to deal with media obligations around Sunday’s match. The FAI said in June that Ireland’s home game was moving to a neutral venue for “operational reasons” and that no fans will be present.
And there will be more discussions tonight and probably tomorrow.
