BELFAST sports stars have added their names to a letter calling on the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to boycott the Boys in Green's upcoming UEFA Nations League games against Israel. 

The open letter, sent from the Irish Sport for Palestine Group, has been signed by West Belfast boxers Tyrone McKenna and Séan McComb, and by former Rossa and Antrim camogie star Jane Adams.

The Ireland men's football team are due to play Israel in two fixtures over the coming weeks, on 27 September in Hungary and in the reverse fixture in Serbia on 4 October.

Other notable athletes from across Irish sport signed the letter including runner Ciara Mageean, former Dublin GAA stars Michael Darragh Macauley and Philly McMahon, and former Irish rugby fly-half Tony Ward. 

Addressed to the 'Irish Senior Men's National Team', the letter states that, "as athletes, we're taught that all players are equal and everyone is bound by the same rules on a level playing field. But these universal values are incompatible with the reality of sport where oppressive and discriminatory structures are reproduced."

It continues, "Nowhere is this more obvious than in Palestine, where fairness and equality are denied by the Israeli occupation and then enabled by sporting bodies.

"We have been unequivocal in our call to cancel the two upcoming UEFA Nations League games because we believe playing Israel legitimises a genocidal regime and gives cover for statute violations, apartheid, and war crimes."

The letter states that the FAI, UEFA and the Irish Government should have taken "decisive action" and that "no player should be put in this position".

The letter goes on to appeal directly to the players to "act collectively with conscience". The signatories say they understand what it takes to get to the highest level of their respective sports, and that they "know what it takes to uphold the values of sport and act with fairness, equality, and respect, which is why we call upon you as a team, to refuse to participate in the two games against Israel".

"Putting on the Irish jersey and representing your country means something," the letter goes on. "But the Ireland we want represented is the one that remembers its roots in anti-colonial and anti-imperial resistance which Irish sport played a large part of," and that not playing the game "would be the most sporting thing to do".

"We urge you to meet the moment and Stop The Game. Ireland is behind you on this."