Volunteer Fired From Treaty United FC After Expressing Pro-Palestine Sentiment

Long-time volunteer Jason Shanahan was told his services were no longer needed at Treaty United FC after he expressed pro-Palestine sentiment in the club. 

“I’ve been working with Treaty United since pretty much almost the beginning, from April 2021. It started off as just writing for the programme and it quickly snowballed into running the social media, doing commentary on women's and men's games, interviews, a little bit of everything, “ he says, adding that this year, all of his volunteering focused on the Academy, the youth section for the club. 

However, relations between him and club management turned sour once he expressed pro-Palestinian sentiment during a match. 

On Friday July 3rd, when the club was playing Kerry FC, he erected a “Stop The Game” banner in reference to the upcoming Ireland versus Israel game. 

“The match started and I was up in the stands and I kind of looked down towards the flag like a parent looking at a child in the soft play area. And I noticed the flag was gone, and I immediately feared for the worst, that the flag had been robbed, “ he says, before a friend texted him a photo of the flag being removed by a volunteer under the instructions of club management. 

Aontacht Media can confirm that there is no directive issued by the FAI towards League of Ireland clubs to pull down Stop the Game banners, and that as such, the club management was acting on its own initiative.

“I got in contact with the club management and they were like, oh, we have the flag in the office, “ he says, at which point he was invited in to collect it. He was brought into the office, with Head of Operations Alison Lea in the room, where Ian McMahon, the Managing Director, berated him for the display of pro-Palestine sentiment.  “I was promptly given a lecture about how as a volunteer I'm not allowed to make any political statements within the club, “ he says. 

“They basically gave me an ultimatum at that stage. And it was, to put it shortly, it was, you know, play by the rules or you can leave, “ he explains. “You do know who our owners are, don't you?, ” McMahon asked him, referencing the Canadian investment firm, Tricor Pacific Capital, an investment firm encompassing a broad portfolio of companies operating in the food, real estate and industrial sectors 

Undoubtedly discussed behind the scenes by club management, Shanahan woke up the next day, on Saturday, to notifications of him being removed from the club’s Facebook pages. He sent emails and texts asking what had happened over the weekend, but received no response. On Monday, he received an email stating that the club were looking to “move in a different direction”, specifically “focusing on creating a positive atmosphere”, and that his “services were no longer required”, before being promptly removed from the club’s WhatsApp groupchats. 

“And that was the end of my 5 or so years in the club, “ he says, adding that “I was disappointed. I think when I heard nothing back, I had a feeling that maybe something might be afoot, but I think even, even with that in my mind, it's, it's not real until it happens, you know, “ explaining that “I particularly enjoyed my work the last number of months working in the academy, and I thought we'd done good work. You know, I'd been very fortunate to be around some great, um, yeah, coaches who, who kind of informed all the reporting I did on the academy and things like that, and I really enjoyed it”. 

“I received a lot of outpouring of support from, I suppose, from volunteers, from some of the players within the club's teams, and, you know, supporters of the club, people who used to be involved with the club as well, “ he says. 

It was, in no way, therefore a democratic decision. His case was discussed amongst top-level club management. The membership had no input. 

“The email I received was written by the Managing Director of the club, that's Ian McMahon, who, um, came into the club late last year, and also included in the email was Marketing and Communications advisor Ian Grundy and the Head of Operations, Alison Lay, “ he says, explaining that “I'm not sure if that had any involvement with any of the other board members. I know that there's maybe one board member living in Ireland, and I think the remainder are living in Canada, so I'm not sure if they had any input on the matter”.

This is not an isolated case of suppression of dissent within football. Rather, it comes on the back of an intensifying Zionist campaign to combat the Stop the Game movement. Corporate influence on football is handing over control to an ever-narrowing elite, while membership protests, most recently seen with the FAI EGM voting to allow Ireland’s match against genocidal Israel. 

“I'm a big football person, but I, you know, probably for the first time in my life, I believe that things are bigger than football. I include myself in that, and that I probably put my volunteering with football, not just with Treaty United, but with other clubs and things I've done in the past, ahead of other aspects of life. And I think now, really, it's really come to light that football is far from important here, and we really shouldn’t be engaging with a country carrying out a genocide in Palestine, “ he comments on the aforementioned vote.

“Since I was a child, the one thing I hated to see anyone wronged, and seeing, you know, the horrible atrocities that are being carried out in Palestine at the moment, and the death counts and children being targeted, it's just horrendous, “ he says, adding that “there was a very thought-provoking video that went out about it. It showed clips of Irish football besides clips of bombings in Palestine. These things shouldn't be happening. While people would say it's just a game of football, Israel shouldn't be allowed to partake in football the same way that Russia has been banned from things like the Olympics and from sports because of their involvement in the invasion of Ukraine. All you look for really is consistency in anything. What’s going on in Palestine has shocked everyone the world over. It is horrible, and I think it's just common sense to stand up against it. I don't know how you wouldn't be horrified about what's going on”.