Cowardly FAI choose Serbia as venue to hide Ireland-Israel match shame

The disgraced Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has selected Serbia as the location for playing the ‘home’ fixture of Ireland’s Nations League double-header against apartheid ‘Israel’.

The football governing body said in a statement released on Monday June 29 that the match will be played “in Bačka Topola, Serbia.” This is a small town in the north of the country, with a population of just 11,930. The FAI are clearly intent on hiding the fixture away to the maximum extent possible. The first match is scheduled to take place in Hungary on September 27.

The cowards continued:

This follows a decision taken by the FAI Board to move the fixture to a neutral territory due to operational challenges that could impact on the delivery of the game on home soil.

The change of venue has been approved by UEFA and the game will be played in the TSC Arena in Bačka Topola behind-closed-doors, with the kick-off time to be confirmed in due course.

Israel and the FAI: moving the match won’t derail the campaign to stop it

“Operational challenges” is an interesting euphemism describing the wave of protests and disruptive actions that would happen in Dublin were the game to be played there. The justifiable mood of hostility towards the FAI is likely to be undimmed, however, with the Stop the Game campaign determined to see the fixture called off entirely.

When in mid-June the FAI announced their intention to play the game overseas, leading Stop the Game participants League of Ireland Fans for Palestine (LOIFFP) shared on their Instagram a letter in the Irish Independent from Helen Mahony which said:

The match against Israel should not be played on Irish soil or anywhere else. Enough smoke and mirrors, evasion, obfuscations and empty words – the Government must stop the game, and it must end all complicity in Israel’s fundraising for genocide, apartheid and occupation.

LOIFFP previously played a crucial role in a mass tennis ball hurling protest that disrupted Ireland’s match against Qatar, designed to show opposition to the ‘Israel’ fixture.

On X anti-Zionist voices have expressed similar resolve to ensure the matches don’t proceed:

So, they think that changing the venue will allow the match to take place?

Challenge accepted. #StopTheGame#StopTheGenocide https://t.co/VjY3V4Cn8A

— Terence Smith #Invoke25thAmendment (@TerenceSm1th) June 29, 2026

Calling out the FAI’s cowardice was a common theme:

Sportswashing genocide behind closed doors is still Sportswashing genocide. It shouldn’t fall on the players to boycott the game against Israel in Serbia. The FAI needs to find a shred of courage and refuse to play. #stopthegame 🇮🇪✊🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/RY6wA6UoSL

— Growley Crowley (@Bilcro) June 29, 2026

It's called #StopTheGame , not #ChangeTheGame Cowards!

— Gaeil ar son Gaza (@GaeilarsonGaza) June 29, 2026

New Ross for Palestine appropriately suggested bombarding the comms lines of the Serbian consulate in Ireland.

Shambolic FAI pleasing no one in ongoing farce

As for the clowns at the FAI, they concluded their statement by saying:

As a result of the change of venue for the Israel fixture, the Association will update its 2026 FAI Season Ticket holders and Club Ireland members regarding compensation owed.

Pissing off their own supporters to this extent shows the depth of the FAI’s determination to live in infamy forever as sportwashers of genocide. They are likely under considerable pressure from the Zionist Irish government, which has been voting down measures to apply sporting sanctions to the terror regime in Tel Aviv.

Their shambolic and shameful course of action truly represents the worst of all worlds. By playing, they offend the 74% of fans who don’t want the match to go ahead. By playing overseas, they prevent the small number who do want it to go ahead from seeing the match in Dublin. They even sabotage their own logic, such as when they previously bemoaned the potential:

…forfeiture of six points (which could lead to relegation to League C in the UEFA Nations League and weaken our qualifying potential for UEFA EURO 2028).

Leaving aside the obscenity of fussing over six points while a holocaust proceeds and you could act against the pseudo-state responsible, losing the home advantage increases the chances of dropping those points anyway.

Each new stage of this saga simply brings fresh disgrace on CEO David Courell, who is achieving little other than guaranteeing his place as one of the most shameful figures in Irish sporting history.

Featured image via the Canary