'A loss for Irish football': Ireland victory over Israel leaves sour taste - Middle East Eye

Ireland’s football team beat Israel 3-0 in Hungary on Sunday night in a Uefa Nations League game many believed should never have taken place.

Ireland’s players wore black armbands in memory of those killed in Israel’s Gaza genocide, bowed their heads while the Israeli national anthem played, and refused to shake the hand of their Israeli counterparts.  

The smattering of Israeli fans in the stands booed Ireland’s players, shouted “Fuck Ireland” and chanted “IDF, IDF!” in tribute to Israel’s army.

Yoseph Haddad, a former Israeli soldier turned online influencer and Knesset candidate for the newly formed Amcha Yisrael party, filmed the chants.

“Israel’s national team lost to Ireland on the field, but let the antisemites not celebrate too much – because what really matters is that the IDF will defeat the terrorists that they support!” Haddad posted.

In a video message attached to the post, Haddad said: “So yes, we lose on football, yes. But you know where we don’t lose? The IDF. We always win. So maybe the football Irish team beat us on the football field, but they will never ever break the Israeli spirit.” 

Israel's captain Manor Solomon, who plays for West Ham in England, said that the Irish players had "said stupid things during the game". "Obviously they hate us and we don't like them," he said. "We have a country ten times better than theirs... We're proud to be Israelis, proud of our country, proud of our soldiers..."

Israel has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October 2023, including over 21,000 children. 

"Yes, we lose on football. But you know where we don't lose? The IDF. We always win.”In a video posted to his X account, Arab-Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad led "IDF" chants after Israel’s team lost a Nations League football match against Ireland on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/AtJwh2vp5g

During the game, which Ireland won comfortably thanks to goals in the first 25 minutes from Troy Parrott, Adam Idah and Jack Moylan, Irish player Jayson Molumby drew the referee’s attention to Israeli fans allegedly racially abusing his teammate Idah, who has a Nigerian father.

Uefa said that because official protocols were not followed, no action would be taken. Photographs taken at the game appeared to show Israeli fans shouting at Idah.

Rebecca O’Keeffe, a former Ireland international basketball player and campaigner with Irish Sport for Palestine, told Middle East Eye that Sunday’s game was “a loss for Irish football”.

“Stepping on that pitch was a loss. Playing that game was a loss. They had stood to gain so much and had the opportunity to do the right thing, but they lost when they stepped on the pitch,” she said.

“Ultimately the power lies with Football Association of Ireland, Uefa, the Irish government, and it was a complete absence of leadership and moral authority there.”

'Stepping on that pitch was a loss. Playing that game was a loss'

Everyone involved in Sunday’s game had known about it for seven months. Ireland’s public has stood in solidarity with the Palestinians throughout the Gaza genocide, with a shared history of anti-colonial struggle often cited on both sides.

This shared struggle – against British imperialism and for self-determination – is at odds with the Irish government and economy’s dependence on the United States, Israel’s great protector. 

Figures from the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland show that 1,002 US-owned companies have operations in Ireland, where they employ 245,000 people. 

US ownership groups and investors - many with ties to Israel or with pro-Israel views - have been described as "taking over English football", with CIES Sports Intelligence reporting in 2025 that 144 European clubs have at least one American investor. 

American politicians have also lobbied against Irish plans to hold the Israel Football Association to account.

Before he died, senior Republican Lindsey Graham, who was close to US President Donald Trump and an ardent supporter of Israel, said that “Ireland and others would be punishing the Jewish people 80 years after the Holocaust” if they tried to ban Israel from playing in European football tournaments.

“If these attacks against Israel continue, I will do everything in my power to make those who participate in this effort to marginalise Israel in sports, and elsewhere, pay a heavy price when it comes to access to the American economy,” Graham said. 

Despite the length of time between the announcement of the Nations League games against Israel and the games themselves – the second one will take place on Sunday 4 October in Serbia – the question of whether it would take place went unresolved until the day before.

On Saturday, it was left to the Irish players themselves to decide, with roughly a third voting against playing and Gavin Bazunu, the goalkeeper, ruling himself out completely.

“My decision is based purely upon my personal belief that the killing of innocent people is wrong,” Bazunu said in a statement.

Ireland’s football association, the FAI, is once again being branded cowardly and incompetent. 

In the aftermath of Sunday’s game, its president, Paul Cooke, defended the association’s handling of the match, saying the week leading up to it “went as well as could be expected in the face of unprecedented coverage”.

The FAI is currently over $40m in debt and the loss of revenue if the Israel games were cancelled has been cited as a reason why they must go ahead. 

Cooke had also referred to unspecified sanctions the FAI might face from Uefa if Ireland boycotted the games, but after Sunday’s match he still referred to them simply as “undetermined”.

In the Irish Times, journalist Ken Early wondered how much the threat of “unspecified sanctions” could have amounted to "if Ireland had said clearly at the outset that they would not play games against a national team that was in breach of multiple Uefa statutes, and demanded to be assigned different opponents."

Rebecca O’Keeffe told MEE: “This is the FAI’s doing... The lead-up exemplifies the lack of leadership, the FAI’s total incompetence. They had months to act on this but again it descended into last-minute chaos.”

Anger at the game taking place is, she said, fuelling the Palestine movement in Ireland. With a game against Austria in Dublin on Thursday, demonstrations are planned and the battle is not over.