Ahead of the first game of the 2025 Women’s EuroBasket qualifier in Riga, Latvian, the Irish women’s national team has refused to shake hands with Israeli women’s national team recently.
Prior to direct result of recent comments made by Israeli players and coaching staff which according to reports includes inflammatory and wholly inaccurate accusations of antisemitism published on official Israeli federation channels.
On Wednesday, Israeli basketball player Dor Sa’ar called the Irish team “quite antisemitic,” in an interview posted on the Israeli Basketball Association’s website.
“It’s known that they are quite anti-Semitic and it’s no secret, and maybe that’s why a strong game is expected,” Sa’ar said.
“We have to show that we’re better than them and win. We talk about it among ourselves. We know they don’t like us and we will leave everything on the field always and in this game.”
Israel went on to defeat Ireland 87-57 on Thursday, where Sa’ar said It’s has always fun to represent the country, certainly at a time like this and she’s happy that it was a win for them and hope it would continue like that .
“I don’t want to get into the political issue, but it gives drive and motivation, we screamed the anthem and sang with pride, we need to show the whole world that we are Israel and we will stay here.” She added
As according to Weldon Ireland head coach said he “preferred” not to speak on what happened pregame but said the team didn’t engage in the pre-match activities as a direct result of those unwarranted and unacceptable comments from the Israeli camp about their players
“It was hugely disappointing, we came here for a game of basketball, we wanted to win, but didn’t come out on the right side of the result on this occasion,” Weldon expressed
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