{"id":922712,"date":"2026-10-06T11:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/922712\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T11:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:34:13","slug":"republic-of-ireland-1-1-israel-uefa-to-investigate-half-time-row-after-spitting-accusation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/922712\/","title":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland 1-1 Israel: Uefa to investigate half-time row after spitting accusation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The fixtures, both played at neutral venues, were embroiled in controversy since February when the two teams were drawn to play each other in Group B3.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Republic of Ireland players faced persistent calls to withdraw from the games because of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/topics\/c2vdnvdg6xxt\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ongoing Israel-Gaza war<\/a> with the &#8220;Stop The Game&#8221; campaign &#8211; organised by the pressure group Irish Sport for Palestine &#8211; staging protests before and during Thursday&#8217;s game against Austria in Dublin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tensions between the teams boiled over in Serbia with the Republic of Ireland and Israel players also clashing at full-time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking after the game, Hallgrimsson said he felt Israel &#8220;were trying to intimidate us from kick-off&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I give a lot of credit to the players to stay calm. It could have been a game of yellow and red cards but we were composed, the players were composed, they did well in controlling emotions,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Asked about the half-time incident, Israel head coach Ran Ben-Shimon said he did not see &#8220;anything&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;[At] half-time I was in the dressing room, my room, with my staff,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I didn&#8217;t see anything. When I get the chance to check I will get back to you. I didn&#8217;t see anything, I was in my room.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite facing pressure to boycott and goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu making himself unavailable for both games, the FAI ultimately decided to fulfil both fixtures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The teams did not engage in pre-match formalities in either match, while the Irish players bowed their heads during Israel&#8217;s national anthem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fixtures, both played at neutral venues, were embroiled in controversy since February when the two teams were&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-922712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}