Kieran Shannon: Irish basketball in impossible situation over Israel fixture
Aine O'Connor of Ireland, and her teammates stand for the national anthems before the FIBA Women's EuroBasket Championship qualifier match between Ireland and France at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght, Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Thirteen years ago this very week, news broke that Irish basketball was withdrawing from international competition because of the dire finances of its governing body.
It was particularly devastating for the senior women’s programme. In the previous European championship qualifying campaign, they had come within a whisker of breaking into the A division.
Susan Moran, a WNBA draft pick who had been one of the top three scorers in all of US college basketball in her time in St Joseph’s Philadelphia, had been on board and was ready to commit to another campaign. Generational talents like Michelle Fahy and Niamh Dwyer, who had also enjoyed stellar US collegiate careers, were entering their prime. Just when it seemed like they were primed to break a glass ceiling, the floor caved in.
It would have taken just €30,000 to fund that programme for the next qualifying campaign. But a time when Basketball Ireland was close to a €1 million in debt and in Sport Ireland’s bad books for its misappropriate distribution of grants (money that was meant to go to the installation of outdoor hoops around the country had instead been diverted towards hiring regional development officers), it wasn’t going to be bailed out the way the FAI and its national teams would a decade later. The required government support and public outcry just wasn’t there.
It would take six years before the senior national team programme would be restored, and even then they were confined to the basement of the European game. While Moran & Co had been going up against – and beating – the likes of Holland, now they had to settle for playing the likes of Andorra in the European Small Countries tournament every second summer.
Finally, in 2021, after picking up a silver at that summer’s Small Countries, Ireland got the green light and budget from its governing body to re-enter fully fledged European qualification competition. Gráinne Dwyer was the only survivor from the programme of 2009. An entire generation of player never got to experience what it was like to stand for the tricolour in the National Basketball Arena minutes before playing senior basketball for their country.
A little over two years though after having their full status restored, Ireland have felt threatened with again returning to the international basketball wilderness.
After the Hamas attacks on October 7 and Israel’s relentless retaliation from October 8, Ireland’s Eurobasket qualifier with Israel has always had at least one question mark hovering over it.
Initially it was meant to be played in Tel Aviv in November only for the government and Basketball Ireland to advise and decide that it wasn’t safe to travel to that region. Both the Israeli basketball federation and FIBA Europe understood. The game could be played at another time, most likely the next international basketball window, in February.
As the war and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza escalated, Irish basketball became increasingly uneasy about the fixture and certainly where it should be played. Israel expected it would be played in Dublin, the two countries just reversing the sequence of who hosted who, with the return game in November 2024 then staged in Israel.
No such offer though came from Basketball Ireland. Instead on their suggestion the game will be played in neutral Riga, three days before Latvia themselves play Israel there in another game in that Eurobasket qualification group.
The Israeli Basketball Association was livid upon learning Ireland would not host the game on the grounds they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the Israeli team.
“We regret that the Irish are not standing by us and not responding in the spirit of sports as many other associations and groups have throughout Europe,” the Israeli federation would declare in mid-December. In contrast FIBA Europe and Latvia were lauded for hosting their games and those of the Ukranian national teams, “showing they are made of the best human material.” The inference, clearly, was that Ireland were not.
And yet despite incurring the wrath of Israel, Irish basketball’s governing body and national team players and coaching staff have also found themselves basically accused by pro-Palestine demonstrators as being not made of the best human material.
Some level of protest was only to be expected. At the recent National Cup finals in Tallaght, members of Irish Sport for Palestine staged a peaceful protest outside the National Arena before other activists handed out leaflets to spectators during the women’s Superleague Cup final.
As it turns out, a handful of players will privately boycott the fixture. But nonetheless a team from Ireland will take the court against Israel in Riga on Thursday week.
It is a horrendous position for them to be in. They do not want to be there. But they feel obliged to be there. Basketball Ireland have been informed during this entire process by FIBA Europe that should they fail to fulfil the fixture, they will be fined €80,000, a sum of money that would sustain this women’s programme for several years.
Fail to play the return game in November and it is an additional €100,000. A small sum for some sports organisations but a fortune for Basketball Ireland.
More so, they would be prohibited from playing in international competition for five years.
For a sport that is only back on the international stage after almost a decade in the wilderness, they could not face that.
In European basketball, Ireland are only small fish, a lot smaller than Clare and Davy Fitzgerald ever have been in any pond in hurling. Israel in contrast are considerably meatier; only last year they hosted the women’s Eurobasket finals, the competition both teams are supposed to be vying to qualify for.
Both the men’s teams of Portugal and Luka Doncic’s Slovenia – albeit without the Dallas Maverick superstar – will host the Israeli men’s team later in the month, having agreed to swap who is the home team, an arrangement Ireland would not tolerate. If FIBA Europe will support Israel and won’t change that position unless a UEFA or OCI will, what chance has Basketball Ireland or the Irish senior women’s team?
As the tragedy of what has befallen Gaza has taught us, in this world the strong tend to be strong with the weak and weak with the strong.
