{"id":911057,"date":"2026-09-30T13:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/911057\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T13:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:46:09","slug":"ireland-vs-israel-nations-league-match-will-go-ahead-coach-confirms-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/911057\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland vs Israel Nations League match will go ahead, coach confirms | Football"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Football Association of Ireland says the team will fulfil the second fixture despite public opposition.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Published On 30 Sep 202630 Sep 2026<\/p>\n

Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson says his team will play their second Nations League football match against Israel on Sunday despite opposition<\/a> from the Irish public and a public boycott by a player due to Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FAI [Football Association of Ireland] has said we are playing both games,\u201d Hallgrimsson told a news conference in Dublin on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was our intention when we came into the camp, and it is still our intention,\u201d the Icelandic coach added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to focus on the football. It is already decided we will fulfil the games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland beat Israel 3-0<\/a> in Hungary on Sunday following a turbulent build-up in which the squad voted to fulfil the fixture after goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu pulled out a day before the game.<\/p>\n

Israeli supporters were accused of directing racist chants<\/a> towards Irish forward Adam Idah and were filmed raising military slogans during the match, but evaded disciplinary action from the competition\u2019s organisers.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old Ireland international, born to a Nigerian father and an Irish mother, was targeted with \u201cmonkey chants\u201d,\u00a0as\u00a0videos circulating on social media showed, but the fans\u2019 behaviour has gone unpunished by UEFA.<\/p>\n

An Israeli supporter also led chants about his country\u2019s military from the stands as he attempted to brush aside the team\u2019s drubbing on the football pitch.<\/p>\n

According to reports in the Irish media, UEFA confirmed that racist abuse by Israeli fans towards Idah occurred, but that the matter cannot be investigated because the protocols were not followed by Irish players and officials.<\/p>\n

Ireland face Austria on Thursday in Dublin before their designated home match against Israel, which will be played behind closed doors in Backa Topola, Serbia.<\/p>\n

During Sunday\u2019s match in Debrecen, Ireland\u2019s players wore black armbands in recognition of all the lives lost to Israeli attacks in Gaza and bowed their heads as the Israeli national anthem was played at the near-empty stadium.<\/p>\n

The teams skipped the traditional pre-match handshakes and did not exchange pennants.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s first-choice goalkeeper,\u00a0Gavin Bazunu<\/a>, was the only player who publicly opted out of the fixture and posted a statement on social media, saying he felt \u201cit would be wrong to participate in the upcoming fixtures against Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hallgrimsson said on Wednesday the Irish players would again wear black armbands during the second fixture and bow their heads during the Israeli anthem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Football Association of Ireland says the team will fulfil the second fixture despite public opposition. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,2057,596,6898,26779,36089,17736,588,85],"class_list":["post-911057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-europe","tag-football","tag-gaza","tag-ireland","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-protests","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}