The increasingly difficult relationship between politics and international football has presented UEFA with another problem — when should two countries simply be prevented from playing each other?
The question has resurfaced following the latest Nations League meeting between Ireland and Israel, a fixture played against a backdrop of considerable political tension.
Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrímsson subsequently suggested that UEFA should consider ensuring that the countries are not drawn together again.
Whilst the proposal might seem radical, the principle is already established.
UEFA already prevents certain countries from being drawn against each other because of political disputes or security concerns. Serbia and Kosovo are another obvious example, and before their exclusion from recognised international football, Russia could not face Ukraine.
That makes the argument less about whether UEFA should allow politics to interfere with supposedly random football draws, but more about where the line should be drawn.
Ireland and Israel are different from Russia and Ukraine or Serbia and Kosovo. There is no direct territorial dispute between the two countries. Instead, tensions surrounding their matches largely reflect Ireland’s position on Israel’s actions in Gaza and the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
That distinction matters.
If political disagreement between governments, protests surrounding matches or hostility between supporters becomes sufficient reason to keep countries apart, UEFA could quickly find itself facing demands for many more restrictions.
There is also a sporting consideration.
International qualifying competitions are designed around seeded draws intended to produce broadly balanced groups. Every restriction placed upon those draws reduces the number of possible combinations.
One or two prohibited pairings can be accommodated relatively easily. A growing list would make the process considerably more complicated and potentially create questions about competitive fairness.
There is, however, another side to the argument.
Football authorities have a responsibility for the safety of players, officials and supporters. If intelligence suggests that a particular fixture creates an exceptional security risk, insisting that the match proceed simply to preserve the principle of an open draw becomes difficult to justify.
UEFA has already acknowledged that reality through the restrictions it currently imposes.
The challenge is establishing a consistent threshold.
Political disagreement alone would create an extremely broad test. A serious and demonstrable security threat provides a much clearer one.
Football cannot completely insulate itself from international politics, however much its governing bodies might prefer otherwise. UEFA’s existing restrictions already demonstrate as much.
But the danger is that if European football’s governing body is not careful, it risks landing itself in the middle of political disputes that have little to do with the sport itself.
