Ireland Reiterates Symbolic Stance During Match Against Occupation Team
The Irish national football team reiterated their symbolic stance during their match against the occupation side on Sunday, as they wore black armbands and bowed their heads during the playing of the occupation’s anthem, before the second meeting between the two sides in the UEFA Nations League, which ended in a 1-1 draw.
Kevin Kellyh wore the Irish captain’s armband in place of Dara O’Shea, who was granted leave to stay with his wife following the birth of their child.
Before kick-off, Kellyh deliberately avoided shaking hands with Dor Peretz, the occupation team’s captain, despite completing the customary handshakes with the referee and one of his assistants. The Liverpool goalkeeper thus repeated O’Shea’s gesture from the first match between the two teams in Debrecen, Hungary, last week, when he refused to shake hands with the former occupation captain Manor Solomon.
Ireland had already secured victory in the first encounter with a 3-0 clean sheet, scoring all three goals in the first half.
In the match held in Bačka Topola, Serbia, Solomon sat on the bench, while striker Sedy Abu Fakhri returned to the starting lineup after serving his suspension, which was imposed for his celebration of a goal scored during the occupation’s 1-3 defeat to Austria on September 25 in the same competition.
Ireland’s bench also included Finn Azaz, whose mother is of Jewish descent, after he started against Austria on Thursday.
The match was originally scheduled to be hosted in the capital, Dublin, but the Football Association of Ireland decided in June to move it to a neutral venue, citing “operational” reasons, following widespread calls to boycott the game in protest against the occupation’s aggression on Gaza. The association announced that the match would be played behind closed doors.
This follows a proposal submitted by the Football Association of Ireland last November, in which it called on UEFA to ban the occupation’s participation in continental club and national team competitions.
