The Irish ladies’s basketball staff would lose a “technology of gamers” have been they to boycott their EuroBasket qualifier in opposition to Israel, says Basketball Eire CEO John Feehan.
Eire are because of play Israel within the Latvian capital Riga on Thursday.
There have been requires Eire to boycott the sport given the continued Israel-Gaza struggle.
Talking to RTE, external, Feehan stated Basketball Eire would face heavy sanctions if they didn’t fulfil the fixture.
In line with Feehan, Basketball Eire have been advised by governing physique Fiba Europe that they’d be fined 80,000 euros (£68,201) if they didn’t play on Thursday and an extra 100,000 euros (£85,245) positive if they didn’t fulfil the return sport in November.
Eire would additionally face expulsion from the Fiba Ladies’s EuroBasket 2025 competitors.
“I am fairly positive we would be hit fairly laborious as a result of we did really ask was there an alternative choice to taking part in this sport and all the remainder of it, and from that perspective there is not,” stated Feehan.
Feehan added that “cash is every part” to an organisation like Basketball Eire.
“However the actually huge difficulty for us is we would be successfully eliminating a technology of gamers. We might be out of worldwide competitors for the following 5 years successfully.
“Not solely would we be out of worldwide competitors for the following 5 years however it could in all probability take us one other 5 years to get again to the place we at the moment are, so in actual phrases we would lose a technology of gamers.
“We might additionally lose position fashions for our youngsters as they undergo the method of studying to play basketball, there’d be nowhere to go.”