Colin Sheridan: Don’t tell me an Israeli sports ban is impossible
DIFFICULT SCENES: Palestinians inspect the damage at a site hit by an Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. Picture: AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi
Ah, what a weekend of sport it was. From Rhashidat Adeleke’s Diamond League win in Monaco, to last gasp drop-goals in Durban, to a gripping endgame in Croke Park, it was one of those weekends you didn’t have to leave the couch and yet you could feel utterly inspired by example after example of the transformative effect of sport can sometimes have on our psychosis. How happy it makes us. How distracted. How alive.
But seriously, no. I can't do it. Not this Monday. I can't write a back page about sport when I watched, as many of you have, a crowd of human beings play football on a pitch moments before it was bombed. Seconds before death fell from the sky. You thought this was going to be a column about the potential pain of Galway winning an All Ireland or England and the Euros? I'd say I'm sorry. But I'm not. If you want a guilt free ride through your Monday morning, go read the New York Times.
Yesterday I visited a hospital in Cairo that is caring for babies evacuated from Gaza. They are as small as newborns despite being eight months old. Many of them have a designation above their cot that reads WCNSF. It stands for ‘Wounded Child No Surviving Family.’ I'm sure, if they grow to be strong enough, they will want to kick a ball, because even orphans kick ball, but I wonder how many of them will do so unafraid of what the sky holds for them, given that it was the conduit that literally ripped their parents from this earth?
In two weeks time the Olympics will begin. Israel, the state responsible for the orphaning, will send 87 athletes. Lord knows, many of those athletes may be against what's happening in Gaza, but we will never know. It's not that kind of place, see. It's not the type of country that tolerates critical thinking, nevermind dissent. Many of the selected athletes will have served in the IDF. Otherwise they would have gone to prison. That does not make them baby killers, but, if they remain silent, as they inevitably will, it does make them guilty by association.
“But,” I hear some cry, “what about Munich?” And you would be right. The massacre of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team and one West German police officer by the militant group Black September in 1972 was inarguably the Games’ darkest hour, and one that had the eyes of the world trained upon it. Terror is not a competition, but Munich, for many reasons, was a singular event so dramatic it was always going to end up as a movie. There will be no Hollywood blockbuster about Gaza. Where would you even start? Which atrocity would you pick? As somebody who lived through a blast in Beirut that killed 220 people, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about the people in Rafah and Khan Younis and al-Mawasi who are living through 281 consecutive Beirut blasts, with the next one coming tomorrow.
I only bring this up because I know what it's like to see maimed kids carried off exploded streets. I know what it's like to know the parents of those kids. I know what it's like to mop the blood and excrement and vomit out of a car that brought them to the hospital. It stays with you.
So, don't tell me it's complicated. Don't tell me suspending Israel from international sport is impossible because of horrific wrongs done unto them in the past. If the fantastical state of Palestine had butchered 40,000 people in 9 months, I would be making the exact same case against them.
And don't make any stupid comparisons about literally any other country in a similar situation, because none exist.
Just like the parents of those orphans no longer exist. They are dust. Or rather, they are pieces of flesh, rotting already in the July heat, left there to be eaten by dogs, blown apart by an invisible enemy, hiding not in buildings around the corner, but in control rooms in Tel Aviv and Ashkelon. Unlike most of their Olympians in Paris, those IDF soldiers will get medals for their ‘combat,’ and trust me, they will wear them. Proudly.
This week then, as you pick your kid up from summer camp, be thankful that the skies they play under are empty, save for the grey clouds we so regularly lament. Be thankful that there is no vessel of death hurtling toward them, unbeknownst to them, intent on maiming, crippling and killing. Be thankful that the grazed knee, the bruised ego, the imagined slight of a distracted friend is the only injustice they will suffer. All by the stroke of God's pen.
Next week, let's talk about Armagh and England and Rory McIlroy winning or blowing The Open.
This week, let's mourn the dead.
The mob is fickle. On Saturday evening against Armagh, David Clifford was, by his one majestic standards, below par. Given their path to this point, those of us outside the kingdom saw little of Clifford this year, and were honestly the lesser for it. Up to this point, he was certainly doing enough, but, understanding what he was capable of, it was reasonable to assume that the closer Kerry got to the final, the better Clifford would perform. One was very much dependent on the other, in fact, and that is most definitely part of the problem.
Clifford, 25, has already one All Ireland medal, and any telling of the tale of Kerry’s 2022 triumph over Galway would be incomplete without his genius being at the centre of it. His performance that day was easily one of the most memorable given by an inside forward in an All-Ireland final, not least because of the pressure he was under. Without him, Kerry simply would not have won, nor would they have come within a kick of Dublin last year. The fact that it was Clifford who seemed solely responsible for carrying Kerry to that point is indicative, not just of his talent, but his leadership.
On Saturday night, many on social media rejoiced in Clifford's relative mediocrity against Armagh, snarkily rubbishing unsubstantiated comparisons to Peter Canavan and others. It was sadly predictable tripe, another reason to turn your phone off when you are trying to watch and enjoy such a compelling occasion. As an individual, Clifford has achieved more at his age than almost any other Gaelic footballer that’s come before him. He also buried his mother last year, the day before a Munster final himself and his brother Paudie played in. An off day, an off week, an off season changes nothing. He’s earned his rest. Pity the fools that doubt him next year.
For all of us, the appointment of Heimer Hallgrimsson as manager of the Republic of Ireland mens team came as a bolt from the blue. Perhaps even for Hallgrimsson himself. Surely then, there's a script for a six-part, Ted Lasso style comedy that charts the selection process from the guy who first thought of him, to the search for his name in the Icelandic journal for registered dentists? It’s a no-brainer; the FAI delegation arriving at his surgery just as he’s about to do a root canal, Sigur Ros playing on his sound system. The beauty of making an actual TV show about the entire fiasco is that we actually know how long it lasts.
Put your money on Rory McIlroy this week. Having disappeared for a month after letting the PGA slip, he tanked at the Scottish Open this weekend. His off-on marriage is off the front pages. He spent much of the week at the Renaissance Club publicly defending his caddie and calling out his critics. It’s textbook, revenge bod territory for the Hollywood man. All he needs to do is stay angry, and the Claret Jug could once again be his. Hell hath no fury like a genius scorned.
