Boycotting Israel fixture would mean a decade in the wilderness for Ireland - Basketball Ireland CEO John Feehan

Basketball Ireland CEO John Feehan has said that a boycott by the Ireland women's team of their EuroBasket qualifier against Israel would mean a decade in the wilderness for the sport in Ireland.

Pressure has been growing on the Irish team to boycott Thursday's game, with the Irish Sport for Palestine group leading the campaign and hundreds of Irish sporting figures putting their name to a letter calling for the fixture to be scrapped.

The match was supposed to take place in Israel back in November, but was postponed until 8 February due to security concerns caused by the ongoing war in Gaza. Basketball Ireland requested that the game take place at a neutral venue, with Riga in Latvia selected.

If Ireland do not fulfil the fixture, they will face a fine from FIBA Europe of €80,000. Failure to play the return game in November would result in an additional fine of €100,000 from FIBA Europe, and removal from the FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2025 tournament.

Feehan revealed that Basketball Ireland did seek an alternative to playing the game but were told by FIBA that they must fulfil the fixture or face those heavy sanctions.

"I’m pretty sure we’d be hit pretty hard because we did actually ask was there an alternative to playing this game and all the rest of it, and from that perspective there isn’t [an alternative]," Feehan said,

"They’ve told us we have to play it and if we pull out now it’s very much with a [€180,000 fine]. Money is everything, it is very important, it would be detrimental to us because we’re not a very rich organisation.

"But the really big issue for us is we’d be effectively getting rid of a generation of players. We’d be out of international competition for the next five years effectively.

"Not only would we be out