10-07-2025
‘This isn't right' – Ex-Irish Olympics boss urged to stop Central Bank's ‘genocide bonds' amid Israel siege on Gaza
A DIRECT appeal has been made to former OFI President Sarah Keane to stop the Central Bank facilitating Israel bonds.
The Central
Bank of Ireland
is the sole authority which facilitates the sale of so-called 'genocide bonds' in the
2
Former Olympic Federation of Ireland President Sarah Keane
Credit: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
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A Palestine flag amongst Derry City supporters during the Sports Direct Men's FAI Cup Final match against Drogheda Utd at the Aviva Stadium
Credit: Ben McShane/Sportsfile
This is set to be renewed in September but more than 300 sports people - including
football
captain Con O'Callaghan and former
Keane was the President of the Olympic Federation of Ireland between 2017 and 2024 and is credited with overseeing much-needed reform in the organsiation.
She remains the CEO of Swim Ireland and is a Central Bank board member which has prompted Sport for
Former Leinster player and prominent activist Trevor Hogan said: 'Without trying to make it personal to Sarah but Sarah is involved in
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'For my own self, it really hits home when I think about what's happened to sport on top of everything else, on top of the starvation, the forced displacement and everything.
'There's no sport, it doesn't exist, every facility has been destroyed and all sporting teams have been either subject to killings or just shut down so, from that, how can we not have some sort of sanction on the people who are doing that, which is the Israeli state, who are still involved in all sorts of sporting activity, they
freely
.
'We have a chance to say, 'No, we're not going to contribute to that continuing genocide', and we can actually appeal to Sarah from a sporting point of view.
'It's not necessarily even a sanction, it's just a little bit of a signal to say, 'Hold on, we need to
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Sport for Palestine said they had written to all 10 members of the
They also contacted the commission itself. The only response it received was in relation to that communication.
Palestine GAA players watch camogie match on laptop
It referred to its governor Gabriel Makhlouf's statement in front of an
But Hogan added: 'They maybe thought they could put it to bed and hide it. For me, it feels like they're hiding behind the regulations, whereas there's a wider legal interpretation that they could take.
'Most reasonable people would say 'Yeah let's do that and let's take a step'.'
Hogan took part in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in 2011. Asked if he could have seen things worsen to the extent they have, the four-times-capped Ireland international said: 'I probably didn't think it would be this bad.
'I didn't think that the genocide would have got to the level where they wiped out every
'I didn't anticipate that but I do think that has brought it to a turning point in a way. The mask is off on what they're trying to do, the mask is off in who is supporting them in terms of America and
'It's 'right where do we stand now?' so it's not this 'both sides' anymore, 'Well if I say this about Palestine, I have to balance it with this'.
'No one needs to do that anymore, they know where to stand so let's push hard like we did with
Hogan also voiced his dismay at the
next
Wednesday.
He said: 'We got a Gaza kids group here in 2015-16. A lot of those obstacles were put in place but we managed to get through and it was just so uplifting to see the outcome of that when the kids came over.
'Show a little bit of leeway, it feels like they're artificially making it difficult but we keep going, keep appealing to them because there is time for it to still happen.'
