{"id":294772,"date":"2026-02-12T20:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T20:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/294772\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T20:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T20:17:10","slug":"my-opinion-is-not-relevant-heimir-hallgrimsson-stands-over-past-comments-as-fai-confirm-ireland-will-fulfil-israel-fixtures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/294772\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018My opinion is not relevant\u2019 \u2013 Heimir Hallgrimsson stands over past comments as FAI confirm Ireland will fulfil Israel fixtures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Latest\u00a0|\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Former player and draw ambassador Patrick Vieira draws Israel in the Uefa Nations League draw at Brussels Expo, Brussels, Belgium. Photo: Reuters\/Benoit Tessier\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IONS-DRAW (32).jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Former player and draw ambassador Patrick Vieira draws Israel in the Uefa Nations League draw at Brussels Expo, Brussels, Belgium. Photo: Reuters\/Benoit Tessier<\/p>\n<p>Daniel McDonnell in Brussels<\/p>\n<p>Today at 20:30<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Heimir Hallgrimsson has reiterated his view that he does not understand why Israel are allowed to participate in European competitions while Russia are banned &#8211; but the Ireland manager says he will leave the matter of whether the contentious autumn Nations League games should be played to the FAI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Hallgrimsson was left to face the difficult political questions created by a draw in Brussels that has pitted Ireland against Israel with FAI CEO David Courell and President Paul Cooke choosing to leave the venue without speaking to media on the subject. The FAI referred the travelling media to a brief statement released within a minute of the draw ending which asserted that they would fulfil the fixture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Latest\u00a0|\u00a0 Former player and draw ambassador Patrick Vieira draws Israel in the Uefa Nations League draw at Brussels&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3264,1113,4700,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-294772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-daniel-mcdonnell","tag-fai","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}