For months, a grassroots movement demanding Ireland cancel its upcoming UEFA Nations League matches against Israel has continued to gain traction, showing no signs of fading even after the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) announced a compromise to play the fixtures on neutral territory. In early July, FAI delegates passed a motion to relocate the September 27 and October 4 matches—originally scheduled for Dublin and Tel Aviv—to Hungary and Serbia respectively, a move the association framed as a resolution to the months-long controversy. But pro-Palestine campaigners say the shift in venue does not address their core demand: that Ireland refuses to compete against Israel entirely amid its ongoing military campaign in Gaza.
Rebecca O’Keefe, a former Irish international basketball player and leading figure with Irish Sport For Palestine (ISFP), which has spearheaded the campaign since early 2024, emphasized that the movement remains unshakable. “I think it’s only going to gain strength,” O’Keefe said. “We really, really remain resolute in stopping these games. The facts haven’t changed; we’re still witnessing genocide, we’re still witnessing the total impunity of a genocidal regime.”
The “Stop the Game” campaign, which counts among its supporters League of Ireland fan groups, multiple domestic clubs, trade unions, and civil society organizations, has already deployed a range of tactics to pressure the FAI. After the FAI’s relocation vote, members of League of Ireland Fans for Palestine confronted FAI president Paul Cooke directly, and the following day activists staged a high-profile protest on the roof of the association’s Dublin headquarters. The group has also openly raised the possibility of disruptive action, including blockading Irish airports to prevent the national team from traveling to the matches.
Ken Powell, a spokesperson for the League of Ireland Fans for Palestine group, made clear that the venue change was never the goal of the campaign. “There was never any issue with the location,” Powell said. “It’s who is playing the game. Israel has killed 566 footballers in Gaza alone, since 7 October 2023. So our message remains the same: no game, not here, not anywhere.” The group has already announced plans to extend protests to Ireland’s intervening Nations League fixture against Austria in Dublin, which will be held between the two Israel matches, and ISFP has confirmed it is coordinating with pro-Palestine civil society groups in Austria to organize joint actions.
Not all campaigners share the same level of optimism about stopping the fixtures, however. Stuart Gilhooly of the Professional Footballers’ Association of Ireland (PFAI), a union that has publicly supported a boycott, said he believes the matches will go forward as scheduled. “Realistically, I think the games will proceed. I don’t see where we can go from here unless the players take a stand and I don’t see that happening,” Gilhooly noted. The PFAI only represents domestic Irish league players, very few of whom earn call-ups to the senior national team, limiting the union’s ability to influence the outcome.
The controversy grew out of February 2024’s Nations League draw, which placed Ireland in Group B3 alongside Israel, Austria, and Kosovo. The FAI initially confirmed it would host Israel in Dublin, a decision that drew immediate backlash, despite the association having previously submitted a motion to UEFA calling for Israel’s suspension from international football. The movement gained widespread public traction, amplified by longstanding broad solidarity with Palestine across Irish society, though Ireland also maintains deep economic ties to the United States, which has backed Israel’s military campaign.
The FAI’s decision to reject a full boycott came amid significant institutional vulnerability. The association is currently carrying €38 million ($43 million) in debt, relies on UEFA funding to remain operational, is cutting 25% of its staff, and has publicly acknowledged it lags far behind peer international federations in resources and development. In a letter to members after the vote, the FAI board warned that refusing to play the fixtures would carry severe consequences: an initial €5.5 million revenue loss, a projected further €10.3 million in additional costs, automatic relegation from the Nations League division, and potential suspension of all Irish teams from UEFA competitions. The association also noted its hosting commitments for Euro 2028—for which Ireland is a co-host—and its bid to stage the 2029 Women’s Champions League Final in Dublin as additional factors shaping its decision.
Campaigners have pushed back on the FAI’s financial warnings, arguing the risk of sanctions has been exaggerated. O’Keefe noted that all potential UEFA penalties are hypothetical, and that any sanctions could be challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. She pointed to the coordinated boycott of Russian national teams after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, where individual federations refused to play Russia before governing bodies implemented a formal suspension, as a precedent for action.
The controversy has already created deep rifts within Irish football. Joanna Byrne, a Sinn Fein Member of Parliament and former co-chair of League of Ireland Premier Division side Drogheda United, says she was forced out of her voluntary role by the club’s U.S.-based ownership group Trivela Group after she publicly called for the matches to be canceled. Trivela has denied the allegation. In May, during a friendly international against Qatar at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, pro-campaign fans disrupted the match by throwing tennis balls wrapped in Palestinian colors printed with the #stopthegame slogan onto the pitch. International players have also acknowledged the pressure the dispute places on squads: veteran Irish captain Seamus Coleman noted that the issue should be resolved by governing bodies, not players, saying “It is very difficult for us players, difficult for the manager, and all the staff that we are dealing with this… But of course, you know our feelings as human beings.”
Some Irish politicians who support the boycott have criticized UEFA for failing to act on its own statutes, which prohibit member associations from violating the organization’s core principles. Dublin Labour Party MEP Aodhan O Riordain, who has led calls for a full sporting boycott, said: “The FAI shouldn’t be in this position. Uefa should have made the decision a long time ago. Israel are in breach of Uefa and Fifa statutes, and Israel should not be competing at all. It’s just the intensity of what’s happening in the Middle East – the presentations we as politicians are getting week in week out in the European parliament. Nobody is standing up, nobody is exercising any kind of sanction or veto.”
While the Irish government and FAI have framed the relocation of the matches to neutral territory as a resolution to the controversy, campaigners say it only removes the issue from Irish soil without addressing their core demand. The dispute over the matches is part of a broader wave of pro-Palestine activism targeting Irish sporting institutions: activists are currently pressuring the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) to end its 30-year National League sponsorship deal with insurer Allianz, after Allianz was named in a June 2025 UN Special Rapporteur report for profiting from Israel’s military presence in Gaza. The football controversy also follows an earlier dispute in Irish basketball, where activists called for a 2023 EuroBasket qualifier against Israel to be boycotted; the match was eventually relocated to Riga and played amid heavy pressure.
Both O’Keefe and O Riordain have pushed back against growing pressure on individual Irish international players to refuse to play, noting that governing bodies bear responsibility for making the decision, not athletes. O Riordain, who is pessimistic the matches will be canceled at this stage without a mass player boycott, said the broader campaign for Palestinian solidarity should now focus on Ireland’s ongoing six-month presidency of the European Council. “The bigger responsibility is that we use our presidency to push the agenda of ending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which would be disastrous for Israel, because the EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner,” he said.
Still, campaigners argue that an Irish boycott would act as a catalyst for other European federations to take similar action, pointing to vocal public support for Palestine in larger UEFA members including Spain, Norway, and the Netherlands. Norway’s football association has already donated to Gaza relief efforts and reportedly been working behind the scenes to diplomatically isolate Israel in global football. O Riordain noted that regardless of the outcome of the current campaign, the decision to boycott would carry long-term symbolic weight. “We don’t know, but in 50 years, 100 years’ time, if we decided not to play these games, we don’t know what kind of a domino effect that would have had. And I think if they had decided not to go ahead with the games, they certainly would have gotten a lot of credit for it.”
