Caught in the middle
Irish women’s basketball squad is in a no-win situation ahead of Israel clash
FIVE members of the Irish women’s basketball squad have opted out of playing Israel in this Thursday’s EuroBasket 2025 qualifier, but former international Rebecca O’Keeffe believes that they should never have been put in the position of having to make a private boycott.
O’Keeffe, former captain of Trinity Meteors, has called on Basketball Ireland to boycott the fixture while also writing to Minister for Sport Catherine Martin to engage on the issue, although the Department have yet to respond.
‘The position that they [Basketball Ireland] are taking is really unfair on the players and massive respect to those who have decided they are not playing. They have shown tremendous strength and courage in taking that decision, but it should have been taken out their hands by the governing body,’ said O’Keeffe.
O’Keeffe is one of the generation of Irish basketball players who were robbed of the opportunity of representing their country at senior level for seven years after Basketball Ireland suspended the international programme due to financial issues, so she is not judging anyone that takes to the court in Riga this Thursday to face Israel.
‘I want to stress this, there is zero judgement from me for the players who are going to play. I will reiterate that they have been put in a very difficult position, so I really feel for them.’
Basketball Ireland face an €80,000 fine if they fail to fulfil the fixture, which increases to €100,000 if they also fail to fulfil the return fixture in November, along with a threat of a five-year expulsion from FIBA, the world governing body.
However, O’Keeffe believes FIBA won’t take such drastic action. ‘There has been an emphasis on fines and bans, but if we look at the FIBA handbook, it says that in the first instance of forfeiture, which this game would be, it would incur a fine of up to €80,000 if we forfeit the match. The five-year ban is the most severe punishment it could give.’
O’Keeffe is part of the Irish Sport for Palestine group, which also includes Dublin GAA legends David Hickey and Michael Darragh Macauley and former rugby star Tony Ward. Last Thursday, they delivered a letter into Leinster House signed by more than 300 Irish athletes calling for Israel to face sporting sanctions for the slaughter in Gaza, which has killed more than 26,000 people, mostly women and children, which has been a retaliation for the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7th, where more than 1300 people were killed.
It has been the misfortune of Ireland women’s team to draw Israel, who hosted last year’s EuroBasket tournament. The game was originally slated to take place in Tel Aviv, but ongoing security concerns means that FIBA acceded to a request to move it to Latvia – Israel are playing their first qualifier in Riga this weekend.
The Ireland team have been making great strides after so long in the international wilderness. After claiming the European Small Nations title a few years ago, they shocked a fully-professional Dutch outfit in Tallaght in November 2022 and a year ago, travelled to Prague where they performed gallantly against the full-time Czechs. But those two excellent performances barely made a ripple in the wider Irish sporting landscape.
Now, through no fault of their own, they have been thrust into the spotlight. The fact that they have to play Israel underlines a double standard within global sport – Russia and Belarus were exiled from sporting competition following the invasion of Ukraine and Basketball Ireland refused to play Belarus in a fixture two years ago.
There have been increased calls for the IOC and FIFA, the two biggest sporting organisations in the world, to act over Israeli aggression with the sense if they did, others would follow. Jules Boykoff, who is a professor of politics and government at Pacific University, Oregon, and has written extensively on the Olympic movement, feels that if the war continues in Gaza, those calls will intensify ahead of the Paris Olympics.
‘If we keep seeing the scenes that we are seeing from Gaza, I think there will be more calls for the IOC to do something,’ Boykoff said. ‘The Palestine Olympic Committee is officially recognised by the IOC but so far, that recognition has not meant protection. When there is this failure of leadership from above, it is often left to the individual athletes to make a stand, and that is what we might see more and more of.’
Which is what we might see this week in Riga. Ordinarily, a women’s Eurobasket qualifier would barely get noticed. But the work of O’Keeffe and Irish Sport for Palestine has propelled this fixture into the public consciousness and she says that there is an opportunity to stand in solidary with the people of Gaza.
‘Arthur Ashe said “start where you are, use what you have and do what you can”,’ O’Keeffe says. ‘Experts have said that the rate of death and destruction in Gaza is the deadliest of the 21st century. We are watching a documented genocide unfold right before our eyes. We simply cannot bury our heads and be silent.
‘Ireland has an opportunity here to condemn and reject Israel’s violent rule through a boycott of this sporting fixture. It will be a strong message and a clear statement of solidary with Palestinians.’