FRESH OFF A flight from Lisbon on Monday afternoon, Cape Verde centre-back and local hero Roberto ‘Pico’ Lopes settled into an impromptu press centre at Aer Lingus’s Shamrock House on the Dublin Airport campus.

Lopes made it to arrivals in Terminal 2 at 3.09pm, where he was welcomed by his family, fans and swarms of Ireland’s media. By 4.35pm, he had relocated and began to take questions on his time at the World Cup and what happens next.

Giving answers on his encounter with Lionel Messi on the pitch at Cape Verde’s game against Argentina (“I just touched him to make sure he was real”), who he’s rooting for to win (France, Spain, Argentina and Morocco were mentioned), Lopes was asked about his position on the Stop the Game campaign.

The Crumlin native has been a prominent voice in the campaign, which aims to stop the scheduled Nations League matches between Ireland and Israel as a result of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Members of the general assembly of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) are to vote on Wednesday on a motion put forward by the FAI seeking affirmation of its position on the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League fixtures against Israel, and the potential consequences of boycotting the fixtures.

As things stand, Ireland’s away game against Israel will be played in Debrecen in Hungary on 27 September, while the home game on 4 October has been moved from the Aviva Stadium to Bačka Topola in Serbia, where it is due to be played behind closed doors.

Asked about the vote, Lopes said his position on the matter hasn’t changed.

“The game for me has to be stopped. It shouldn’t be played,” Lopes said.

On the matches being moved to neutral venues, he said: “It’s not really solving the problem. It’s just moving it. So hopefully the EGM [extraordinary general meeting] goes the right way.

“Some things are bigger than football, and this is definitely one of them.

“My stance hasn’t changed. The game shouldn’t be played, and hopefully the right decision will come out.”

Asked about whether Ireland is isolated in its campaign on Israel’s spot in the league, Lopes said that people from FIFPRO – the worldwide association for professional footballers – have been in touch, “and they’re really impressed with what we’re doing, and I think they’re encouraging more federations to have a stance, and it just goes to show that we’re not just shouting, and people aren’t hearing.

“People are actually looking at what we’re doing, and they’re impressed, and they’re saying we need more people standing up.”

If the matches are to go ahead, he added, it’s “an incredibly hard position for players to be put in”.

The decision should’ve been taken from the players, he said, many of whom don’t feel comfortable with it going ahead.

“Is anyone ever going to refuse to play for their country? Probably not.”

Despite a hectic time away, Lopes won’t be taking long to recover – he’ll be taking up a spot on RTÉ’s World Cup panel on Tuesday for Argentina’s last-16 clash with Egypt, and on Saturday for the quarter-final meeting of England and Norway.

He’s expected to rejoin Stephen Bradley’s Shamrock Rovers squad soon.

Written by Emma Hickey and posted on TheJournal.ie