Scotland captain Caroline Weir said questions about the politics of playing Israel should be put to the football authorities as she and her team-mates prepared for a Women's World Cup qualifying double header in Budapest.
The two games are set for the Bozsik Arena in the Hungarian capital, putting Scotland’s next step toward qualification into a neutral setting far from home and far from Israel. The matches have drawn attention because they come as the conflict in Gaza continues to cast a shadow over the fixtures.
Weir did not try to reframe that debate. She said the issue of whether Scotland should be playing Israel is for the football authorities to answer, not the players getting ready to step onto the pitch. For Scotland, the immediate task is straightforward: two qualifiers, one venue, and a short turnaround in a city better known for hosting neutral contests than political arguments.
The backdrop is impossible to separate from the football. Local hospitals in Gaza said at least nine people were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday night, while both sides estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed in the region overall since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel in October 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed and hostages were taken.
That is the friction hanging over Scotland’s week in Budapest. The schedule is fixed, the venue is set, and the players are training for the football alone, but Weir’s remarks leave the wider question unresolved: whether the authorities who arranged the double header will respond to the politics now attached to it, or keep the focus on the qualifiers themselves.
