Ireland vs Israel - Why politics cant stay off the pitch

impartialreporter.com · Feb 17, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Sport is not my passion. Like many other people, my interest and contribution are exclusively as an armchair spectator and supporter of family, friends, and neighbours. Allies in social justice also count. When it comes to soccer, Dungannon Swifts, Liverpool, and Celtic are it, more or less (with apologies to Derry City.) Nonetheless, the UEFA Nations League draw pitting Ireland against Israel was also significant news this week. fulfilled, despite the widespread calls that the State of Israel should not be allowed to participate in the League. It is my opinion that isolating political activity from other human activity, including sport, music art, creative writing, and filmmakin,g is as perverse as it is untenable. While the opinion that ‘politics should be kept out of sport’ is much older than the modern phrase ‘virtue-signalling,’ much-loved by armchair supporters of the State of Israel, MAGA, misogyny and racism, best describes it. MAGA supporters did not even the phrase or indeed the concept. The Oxford Dictionary defines virtue-signalling as: "the act of expressing your opinions about social or political issues in public to show other people that you are a good person” having added it to the dictionary in 2015 but the concept has a much longer history than that. Counselling against ‘virtue signalling’ appears in the Bible! “Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Matthew: 6.1. The message is not one discouraging human empathy and support for social justice but rather calling out the age-old ‘respectable’ practice of saying what makes you look like a decent person while avoiding your responsibility and capability to do what is ethically required to improve matters and create a better world. The common name for a ‘virtue-signaller’ is a hypocrite. Any politician, political party, government, civic influencer or activist who supported the total expulsion not only of Russia as a nation participating in Internal sports, art, music, but also banned individual sportsmen and women solely on the basis of their Russian nationality, and who has continually refused to adopt the same position in relation to the State of Israel can be defined as a hypocrite, and any sympathetic noises coming out of their mouths as ‘ virtue signalling’. Given our history as a colonised island people for whom decolonisation remains unfinished business, no self-respecting Irish citizen, North or South, should participate in this undignified complicity to pretend soccer is immune from being tainted by genocide. No self-respecting player should take the field, no self-respecting person, regardless of citizenship, should buy a ticket, or even switch on the TV to watch it. Let them play both matches in Gaza, so they can see themselves for what they are. In my assessment and unwavering opinion, it amounts to complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian nation. You may not have noticed the publication this week of a review, or more accurately another review, into complaints to the office of the Police Ombudsman. This review was conducted by the former Police Ombudswoman, Marie Anderson. She recommended, among other thing,s that there should be a way of barring complaints that were clearly “vexatious, ill-founded and oppressive” against police officers, acknowledging this would require legislation. Given we are at most a year from a Stormont election, the Bookmakers will be offering no odds on that legislation happening any day soon, but it was not that thought came to my mind. It was the phrase ‘vexation litigant.’ My persistent ‘helper’ AI had its hand up with the answer at the very whiff of the question mark key being touched. It informed me that ‘a vexatious litigant is an individual who persistently initiates legal actions or applications without merit, often aiming to annoy, harass, or cause financial strain to the opposing party. Such individuals abuse the court process by filing frivolous, repetitive, or unfounded lawsuits.’ This is the kind of person whom Marie Anderson had in mind, and who, in her reflective analysis, should get short shrift and be ushered off stage. As I was reading this news item online, I got a ‘notification’ that the Government’s hasty and ill-conceived ban on the direct-action protest group ‘Palestine Action’ had been declared unlawful. The decision of the Appeal court followed hot on the heels of the acquittal of the young people known as the Filton 8 (the total number grew, I believe, to the Filton 24). The young activists had been charged with aggravated burglary and criminal damage and variations on that theme because they had disabled a warplane with the aid of a small hammer. Readers of this column will already be acquainted with the case and be unsurprised at my celebration of the outcome. What has not been widely reported is that the release of the prisoners, remanded in custody while awaiting trial, some for almost two years, was almost derailed. Counsel for the Government informed the court that there was a probability that the ‘not guilty’ verdicts would be appealed, and some confusion arose as to whether an application might be made that those acquitted should remain in custody pending appeal. The acquitted have had their liberty restored, but Sir Starmer and Yvette Cooper are indeed appealing the verdict. They are also appealing the High Court ruling that their proscribing Palestine action as a ‘Terrorist’ organisation was unlawful. This makes for three-in-a-row when you add the appeal against the acquittal of Kneecap member, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh on ’terrorist’ charges. On that basis, one could reasonably argue that Sir Keir and his Prime Ministers-in-waiting are a nest of vexatious litigants and should be given short shrift by the Courts and the electorate alike. Small things keep reminding me that while the governments we elected appear to be inept and either bullied or bribed by governments already bought and paid for by billionaires and their ‘lackey’s, good people who ‘walk their talk’ are still making progress, everywhere. Let’s all keep doing something every day. Every little thing counts.