Irish football club Bohemian FC shows Palestine support with new jersey

Irish football team Bohemian FC has released a new jersey to raise funds for a sporting initiative supporting Palestinian refugees at a camp in the occupied West Bank.

The Dublin-based club said last week that it released the shirt in collaboration with the charity 'Palestine: Sports for Life', to "support access to sports for children in the camp of Tulkarm in the West Bank".

The League of Ireland Premier Division club said ten percent of the profits from the jersey, which features the colours of the Palestinian flag, would provide sports equipment for the Ramallah-based charity.

Bohemians were formed in 1890 and are one of Ireland's best-supported and most successful clubs.

"Football has enormous power to be a force for good across the world," Daniel Lambert, COO of Bohemian FC said in a statement.

"This 2023 shirt is aiming to take that power from Ireland and assist children in Palestine who face unimaginable challenges and human rights violations each and every day."

Tamara Awartani, co-founder and director of 'Palestine: Sport for Life', said the funds raised would go towards their work in Tulkarm "which focuses on empowering girls, especially in marginalised areas, in their right to play football and to develop their life skills through educational opportunities in line with the goals of sustainable development".

The Tulkarm camp, north of the town of the same name in the occupied West Bank, was established in 1950 - two years after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes by Israeli forces during an event known as the Nakba.

The densely-populated camp has little space for children to play sports or games in, Bohemian FC said.

There is a long history of public support for Palestinians in Ireland and around the world and solidarity with the case has been taken up by football clubs worldwide. 

At the World Cup in Qatar last year, fans and players from Morocco, in particular, were unabashed in their support for Palestine, waving Palestinian flags and chanting pro-Palestine slogans.

Bohemian FC recently released a jersey in support of the 'Refugees Welcome' movement.