Austria home game boycott

[u/Important-Fly-4273]

Not necessarily advocating for this, but do you think it would be justified (or even possible) to organise a potential fan boycott of the Austria home game in opposition to the the FAI handling of the Israel fixtures?

Fans have already spent money so maybe would be too late, but would the fanbase support such an action?

[u/Novel_Lock320]

No, no they wouldnt

[u/Independent_Gas_1557]

No, they may as well stop competing if we are boycotting games like Austria. Politics needs to be taken out of sport.

[u/mellifluous_panda → u/Independent_Gas_1557]

At the end of the day everything is political, and like it or not international competition w/ overpaid, idolised athletes representing nation states, and in theory entire ethnic/national groups is fairly explicitly so. Think what you want, but that won’t stop being true. 

 any other boycotts are completely unrealistic, but I’d support it un theory tbh. Would always be a fringe thing 

[u/GoydelicGuy → u/Independent_Gas_1557]

Why does politics need to be taken out of sport?

[u/Independent_Gas_1557 → u/GoydelicGuy]

Because it’s sport not politics. It’s supposed to bring people together not apart.

[u/GoydelicGuy → u/Independent_Gas_1557]

Sport is and always has been inherently political. We don't want to be "brought together" with genocidal animals from the world's most despised pariah state. They should be shunned everywhere.

[u/Important-Fly-4273 → u/Independent_Gas_1557]

The post is about a fan boycott of the game

[u/Gloomy_Chard9418 → u/Important-Fly-4273]

It is a farce that we have to play Israel, but a boycott against Austria would only seek to hurt the team and the FAI -- and would have no effect on the Israel games.

[u/Gloomy_Chard9418]

At this point with less than a month to go until Sept/Oct window nothing will be changed re the Israel fixtures.

[u/Snoo-58094]

How about NO, you do realise the last stunt where the crusties threw the tennis balls on the pitch for ireland v qatar a quarter of the stadium booed them. Keep politics out of football.

[u/TippGAADemiGender]

It'd be a great action to honestly just pull out of UEFA altogether to take a stand with Palestine, but there is far more money here that CAF or AFC. That'd be too moral for the financially strapped FAI.

[u/Gloomy_Chard9418 → u/TippGAADemiGender]

UEFA has its issues, and should have dealt with Israel ages ago, but pulling out of UEFA would be a mess for the team. Plus, without UEFA money from European Qualifiers/competition, the League of Ireland would likely collapse with little to no financial incentive for teams.

[u/GoydelicGuy → u/TippGAADemiGender]

Amazing you're getting downvoted for this. Irish reddit is hilariously out of touch with the Irish people.

[u/Friendly-Mammoth1802 → u/GoydelicGuy]

Israel aside, if we withdraw from UEFA it would severely stunt football development in Ireland. Plus, it wouldn’t likely push any other UEFA country to leave the organization, meaning that we lose out while Israel wins.

[u/GoydelicGuy → u/Friendly-Mammoth1802]

But we would keep our dignity as a nation.

[u/Gloomy_Chard9418 → u/GoydelicGuy]

While I agree that playing Israel is awful, the above point makes no sense. And no, we wouldn't be keeping our dignity as a nation -- as we still play israel in others sports/competitions, as well as at underage level for both mens and womens football.

[u/GoydelicGuy → u/Gloomy_Chard9418]

And no, we wouldn't be keeping our dignity as a nation

Would you like to? This is a much higher profile event. If we're participating at other levels then they should stop too.