Colin Sheridan: Time to call time on Israel's sports whitewash 

If bodies weren’t enough, the Israeli attacks have also shattered the physical foundation of Palestinian sport. The PFA and other associations estimate 273 to 288 sports facilities -- stadiums, gyms, clubhouses -- either completely or partially destroyed in Gaza and the West Bank. One heartbreaking detail: Gaza once had about 10 stadiums; now only Al Dorra remains intact. Yarmouk Stadium, once a totem of community, has become a detention centre and execution site. From equestrian rings to football pitches - gone. The number of people directly involved in sport who’ve lost livelihoods tops 6,000.

In Israel, military service is woven into the national identity: the Israel Defence Force is not a separate institution, but the epitome of the “People’s Army Model,” a concept whereby ordinary citizens—teachers, clerks, shopkeepers—become reservists when needed, binding society to the army in a shared mission.

That means the violence in Gaza isn’t conducted by distant professionals—it’s deeply rooted in civilian society. Families, communities, businesses all know someone serving. The Code of Ethics of the IDF famously commits to values like “human dignity,” yet explicitly prioritises “devotion to mission and drive for victory” — a hierarchy of values that rationalises collateral death in pursuit of strategic goals. That tension - between the ideal of soldiers being protectors and their role in a campaign now termed genocide by Israeli NGOs B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel — exposes a profound dissonance at the heart of Israeli society.

Meanwhile, Israel Plays on.

While gravestones grow in Gaza where coaches once nurtured youth, Israel continues to field teams internationally, cheerleaders and athletes still beaming with national pride. The Israeli Olympic Committee sends delegations. The football association plays qualifiers. Television broadcasts don’t show Gaza’s ruined pitches — they show Israeli stadia and national colours intact.

It is here that the moral hypocrisy emerges. Ireland itself has a proud tradition of occasionally boycotting regimes — South Africa under apartheid being the exemplar. Yet no significant sanctions or suspensions have been imposed on Israel by major bodies such as FIFA or the IOC. The Palestinian Football Association's petitions have been ignored; the International Olympic Committee has declined to even debate Israel’s conduct, treating it no differently from nations accused of war crimes.

For many in the global south and the Palestinian diaspora, that justifiably feels like a betrayal of sport’s founding values. If Russia was banned for invading Ukraine, why not apply the same standard to Israel, whose campaign has killed over 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza and nearly 1,000 in the West Bank, according to UN and Anadolu reporting.

Irish sportspeople carry their national flag with pride. But what do we say when one country wields sport to whitewash war? Would Ireland tolerate our teams continuing to play while our army systematically destroyed rival nations’ sports — and murdered their athletes?

To allow Israel’s international sports presence is to tacitly endorse a war machine that has systematically erased a sports ecosystem. It's to say that the deaths of hundreds of young Palestinian athletes, of entire clubs and facilities, are collateral and not worthy of sanction.

The contrast couldn’t be starker: where the IDF’s motto places mission above dignity, global sport’s ethos claims to uphold humanism above politics. That gap has become a chasm.

Irish sports foundations—from the Gaelic Athletic Association to Athletics Ireland and Irish cycling—should heed this moment. Solidarity gestures or statements of conscience may seem symbolic, but they matter. The global sports boycott culture that banned South Africa has created precedents. The IOC now faces an historic choice: uphold the Charter truly, or become complicit in one of the worst genocides in modern history.

Israel continues to compete internationally while presiding over the decimation of Palestinian sport. Nearly 800 athletes killed, over 270 sports venues destroyed, entire youth movements wiped out. The IDF is not a distant army but a central institution in Israeli society. Sport—once seen as a bridge between nations—is now being weaponised: Israel fields teams, media celebrates its players, while Palestinian stadiums lie in rubble.

The world watches. Ireland, with its own history of principled sporting isolation when moral stakes were high, must ask: will we remain silent as sport becomes a mask for state violence? Or will we use our considerable voice to call foul on injustice -- and demand that international sport finally holds Israel to account?

When in Rome...

Republic of Ireland football fans may have sighed with relief when the rumours finally resolved into reality: Evan Ferguson has signed for AS Roma. The Meath striker’s summer switch from Brighton to Gian Piero Gasperini’s side seems equal parts last-chance saloon and high-risk investment - and the opening act could scarcely have been more encouraging.

Ferguson’s first outing as a Roma player - a training friendly against Serie D outfit UniPomezia - was just the confidence-builder Ferguson might've needed. Within 30 minutes the 20-year-old netted a fluent first-half hat-trick (header, right-foot and left foot), then skipped past defenders before slotting home his fourth after the hour mark. Four goals. One debut. Case closed? Perhaps not, but the statement was made.

Gasperini, the man famed for turning Atalanta’s forwards into high value exports, was suitably delighted, hinting at tactical avenues to exploit Ferguson’s pace and pressing instincts. He even singled out the need to “get to know Evan and exploit his depth.” So much for easing him in gently.

For Irish football, the implications couldn’t be more thrilling. If he thrives in Rome - becoming just the fifth Irishman ever to feature in Serie A - it could bring Italian football back to Irish screens. At 20, he’s already surpassed where Robbie Keane or John Aldridge found themselves at the same age.

It’s a career crossroads: after a frustrating year marred by injuries and limited minutes at Brighton and West Ham, this could be revival or relegation. But the early signs suggest revival. Ferguson has a chance to become Ireland’s talisman. So let's sit back, cross our fingers, and say: mama mia, just let the kid play.

Clifford a glorious throwback 

There’s a moment in every match he plays - usually around the 47th minute - when David Clifford collects a ball on the run, feints left, glides right, and sends a shot over the bar that makes you question the laws of physics and the point of everyone else being there. Watching Clifford play football is like watching poetry that got bored of the page and decided to lace up boots. He doesn’t so much play the game as conduct it, like a maestro with a mean sidestep. In a world of GPS trackers and blanket defences, he’s the joyful reminder that genius still needs no permission.

The senior analyst 

Eamon Dunphy is 80. Which, in football terms, means he’s well into extra time, still waving imaginary cards and shouting at the ref. The man who once described Cristiano Ronaldo as “a cod” now finds himself older than the Premier League, Twitter, and the average RTÉ Player delay combined. His absence from our screens of late is lamentable, because Dunphy didn’t just analyse the game—he disembowelled it, dressed it down, and smoked a cigarette over the ashes. At 80, he’s still sharper than a Roy Keane elbow and twice as unpredictable. He remains the only man who could turn a nil-all draw against Egypt into Hamlet with a hangover. Long may he rant.