Following February\u2019s Nations League draw, the FAI confirmed it would not boycott the Israel games, with chief executive David Courell warning the governing body faced \u201cserious consequences\u201d if it did so.<\/p>\n
Before the Qatar friendly, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign held a protest outside the Irish parliament.<\/p>\n
Ireland defender Seamus Coleman said: \u201cIt should have been dealt with above us. I am a dad, I am a husband, I\u2019ve got a heart, I know the difference between right and wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean if I ask you the same question, I\u2019m sure you\u2019re all of the same opinion of what\u2019s happening. It\u2019s awful, it is extremely sad and it\u2019s a very difficult position for the players to be in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we should be in this position. Absolutely not. But of course we\u2019ve got to answer on it. It is very uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Captain Nathan Collins said that if individual players felt strongly enough to boycott the games, \u201cwe are not going to stand against them\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the FAI said it \u201cunderstands and respects the views expressed by players and staff, supporters, its members, campaigners, members of the public and the Irish footballing community in relation to this fixture\u201d.<\/p>\n
It shared a statement from the Palestinian Football Association, which said: \u201cThe Palestinian Football Association expresses its appreciation for the principled positions taken by the Football Association of Ireland in support of the rights of the Palestinian people and Palestinian athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Palestinian Football Association also affirms its respect for the decision made by the Football Association of Ireland within the framework of its sporting and international obligations, in a manner that enables it to continue fulfilling its noble mission of serving football and promoting the values of justice, solidarity, and mutual respect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following February\u2019s Nations League draw, the FAI confirmed it would not boycott the Israel games, with chief executive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[2714,37,5539,498,48071,1023,274,4005,35586],"class_list":["post-157449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-football","tag-israel","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-palestine","tag-republic-of-ireland-football-team","tag-sport","tag-standard","tag-uefa","tag-uefa-nations-league"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116738485293103034","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}