Richard Boyd Barrett: Protect Grassroots Football, Boycott Israel Match

I'm personally very very grateful to Grassroots Football, Youth Football in my area on a personal level and to all the people, the managers, the coaches, the officials who put their time, as is the case in area after area, town, city, county across the country, amazing people on a voluntary basis put their time and energy into me and my teammates in, and I played for nearly every club, Cabin Tealy Football Club was my first club, now there was a tiny club then, now they're up in the League of Ireland, then St. Joseph's, Sally Noggin, fantastic team in the Schoolboy, Schoolboy Leagues, just wonderful people, still a really brilliant club, both clubs have produced players for the English Leagues and Internationals, I played for Ballybrack Football Club, again another, you know, great club and I've great great memories of them, Dunedin Football Club in Leinster Senior League, St. Joseph's Glass Tool in Leinster Senior League, played for UCD, and yeah, all of these amazing people, and then so many other clubs in the area, and in all of these things, like we used to have to, a lot of the club, well Joey's had better clubhouse than most, but in many cases you were often getting changed, you know, in the rain, under streetlights, on fairly poor facilities, or in containers, you know, getting changed in containers, in pretty awful situations. A shower was fairly unheard of now, you know, when we were doing football. Now the thing about it is, that situation has not changed for lots of clubs, as has been said, I mean this is like 30 years ago I was playing. Sally Noggin and Pearce that were mentioned earlier on, which were originally Pearce Rovers, was the first team that Paul McGrath played for, one of our greatest ever players. Small club now, two senior teams, they've been fighting since 2007 for a new clubhouse, because the old clubhouse is gone, right, and it was just a tin can, it was a tin can, right, but they've been fighting since 2007, they got planning permission, but the council basically have not delivered for them. They are now in an arrangement with Granada, who were also mentioned earlier on, who are primarily girls football teams. Amazing success story of girls football in our area, and the two teams, like they've just two senior teams, but they're kind of twinned with Granada, and they share the same pitches. But I was just talking to Richie on the phone, who is one of the main officials in the club, and he was saying, like, the people in Sally Noggin are really angry and annoyed, as are obviously the club officials, that the young women are having to change in the open and the fields, because there's no clubhouse, right, and then as mentioned, you know, pitches, the lack of all-weather pitches is just, you know, it's totally unacceptable. Teams not able to play for weeks because of the lack of all-weather pitches. So, like, you know, often we'll say things when the national teams do well, and absolutely, you know, applaud it to the women's national team, and indeed, you know, the renaissance that we've seen now with Troy Parrott and all that in Irish soccer, let's hope it continues. But, like, these things don't spring out of nowhere. You have to put the resources in support. All those volunteers, those people are putting enormous work in to our young people, because it really matters to the young people. Like, I wasn't an angel when I was young, but I think, far from it actually, but if it wasn't for football, if it wasn't for football, you know, it could have been a lot worse, let's put it that way. And I think that's true. The amazing, you know, the team, the team ethic, the discipline, and all that kind of stuff that you're taught by football, it really stands to you for the rest of your life, right, and creates friendships and networks and does things for the community that really, you know, just, you can't measure the value of these things, they're so important, but we need to put the resources into, you know, ensuring that clubs like St. Joseph's mentioned, fighting for all weathers, Dorky United, you know, all these teams, Granada and Pearce, having decent facilities, and as we're building residential development all over the place, we need to provide the facilities and amenities. Now, the last minute, I just want to talk about the Israel-Ireland match. In 2016, a young man called Mohammed Khalifa, I was involved in it, it was Gaza Action who organized the tour, he was then 12, he was from Gaza, and Ballybrack Football Club hosted his team from Gaza, El Halal, he was 12, his team, the young Gazans won, 2-1, beat our team, Ballybrack, but it was a great day, great event. He went on to play for the Palestinian youth team. Last year, he was murdered by an Israeli airstrike, with his brother and seven members of his family, in a, you know, a murder, so his life destroyed. I was talking to my friend, Abdel Fattah Al-Srour, about, he works in Aida refugee camp, and he's involved in the football pitch the Israelis are trying to destroy in that camp, it's just a small five-a-side, seven-a-side pitch, right? The UN have said, the UN experts have said, Israel should be boycotted at an international level for its breaches of international law, right? So, other teams are doing it. Russia were thrown out of international competition for what they were doing in Ukraine. How can our government not demand that this game is boycotted and they are thrown out of international competition and make sure this game doesn't go ahead? you