Ben Dorgan, Contributor
It’s been the most dominant headline amongst Irish sport over the last few weeks and indeed a mainstay talking point in the months previous ever since the draw was made to play a terrorist state.
Once the draw was made, you could hear an entire nation say: “That just had to happen, didn’t it?”.
Ireland are coming off the back of a result and performance that was as uninspiring as you could get, as a late concession in Kosovo meant that we fell at the first hurdle in this Nations League campaign.
Uninspiring is perhaps a theme that has ran through football in this country for the better part of the last decade really and the handling of the Israel game fits into that bracket.
As the match draws closer, the calls of ‘There is still time to do the right thing’ still reign heavy in regards to a boycott of the fixture, so much so that mass crowds of protestors surrounded the Castleknock hotel earlier this week to send a further message to the players and management of the national side.
Barring a miraculous turnaround of a decision which would potentially send shockwaves around the world, I genuinely think these calls now fall upon deaf ears.
The FAI has shown what direction it’s been heading in for some time now, while the handling of this as a broader issue rather than a football match has only dug themselves a deeper hole in the eyes of the Irish sporting public and avoiding any chance to assert integrity back into an organisation that has let down the sport in previous years and, on this occasion, the players who will take to the pitch.
What I don’t agree with, however, is the targeting and in some cases attacks on individuals within the squad in the build-up to the fixture. For me, these players have been put in an ungodly position where they unfortunately have the spotlights on them from the get go.
There was something off about seeing images of Irish players with words such as ‘shame’ brandished behind them on social media this week, the same players who brought a level of unity to the country earlier this year and at the back-end of last year.
I understand the strength in the voice behind the protests regarding this fixture, but the players are not to blame here.
Israel should be nowhere near kicking a football on a UEFA stage. UEFA’s hypocrisy and gutlessness shouldn’t surprise anyone anymore, while the FAI’s concerns regarding the prospect of playing this state have seemed half-hearted at best.
If the game goes ahead, I believe a backing of the Irish representatives on that pitch to earn a result would sooth a marginal portion of the sour taste surrounding this fixture.
That’s not to say the event is right.
The ideal statement is one of not playing Israel at all and given the behaviour of the Israeli FA on social media in the build-up to the fixture where bullying tactics have been on display before a ball is even kicked, giving them even a sliver of the time of day leaves a bad taste.
Ultimately, there will be no winner come the end of the 90 minutes in Hungary on Sunday regardless of the final score.
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