Ireland’s women’s basketball team refused to shake hands with their Israeli opponents on Thursday, amid outrage over accusations of antisemitism, as the two countries faced off at a EuroBasket qualifier.
“Basketball Ireland informed Fiba Europe yesterday that as a direct result of recent comments made by Israeli players and coaching staff – including inflammatory and wholly inaccurate accusations of antisemitism, published on official Israeli federation channels – that our players will not be partaking in traditional pre-match arrangements with our upcoming opponents,” it said.
In recent weeks the women’s team had been wrestling with calls to boycott the match, which had been originally slated to be played in Israel in November but was postponed and moved to Riga after Basketball Ireland requested a neutral venue.
Several high-profile sporting figures had backed the call, with pressure on the players ramping up after the Israel Basketball Association shared photos from a practice session that included a visit by soldiers from the Israeli Defence Force.
Basketball Ireland said late last month that it had raised “strong concerns” about the fixtures with Israel to Fiba Europe and that it had floated the possibility of forfeiting the games.
“I would prefer to be talking about basketball and not this, we didn’t engage in the pre-match activities as a direct result of those unwarranted and unacceptable comments from the Israeli camp about our players,” he said in a statement.
The original article contains 588 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 60%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ireland’s women’s basketball team refused to shake hands with their Israeli opponents on Thursday, amid outrage over accusations of antisemitism, as the two countries faced off at a EuroBasket qualifier.
“Basketball Ireland informed Fiba Europe yesterday that as a direct result of recent comments made by Israeli players and coaching staff – including inflammatory and wholly inaccurate accusations of antisemitism, published on official Israeli federation channels – that our players will not be partaking in traditional pre-match arrangements with our upcoming opponents,” it said.
In recent weeks the women’s team had been wrestling with calls to boycott the match, which had been originally slated to be played in Israel in November but was postponed and moved to Riga after Basketball Ireland requested a neutral venue.
Several high-profile sporting figures had backed the call, with pressure on the players ramping up after the Israel Basketball Association shared photos from a practice session that included a visit by soldiers from the Israeli Defence Force.
Basketball Ireland said late last month that it had raised “strong concerns” about the fixtures with Israel to Fiba Europe and that it had floated the possibility of forfeiting the games.
“I would prefer to be talking about basketball and not this, we didn’t engage in the pre-match activities as a direct result of those unwarranted and unacceptable comments from the Israeli camp about our players,” he said in a statement.
The original article contains 588 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 60%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!