{"id":312941,"date":"2026-02-23T11:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/312941\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T11:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:57:09","slug":"the-israeli-soccer-team-are-not-the-israeli-government-sports-minister-insists-government-has-no-issue-on-ireland-facing-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/312941\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Israeli soccer team are not the Israeli government\u2019 \u2013 Sports Minister insists Government has no issue on Ireland facing Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Patrick O\u2019Donovan. Photo: PA\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/016c573a-3532-4037-941a-64fb76c16d30.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)\">Patrick O\u2019Donovan. Photo: PA<\/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)\">The minister responsible for sport says the Government have no issue with Israel playing Ireland in the Nations League and accused those who have called for a boycott of the games of chasing headlines.<\/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)\">A clear gulf has emerged on the issue of Ireland taking on Israel, with the FAI and also the Taoiseach, speaking on behalf of the Government, insisting that the matches can go ahead as planned, at home and away, in the autumn while strong voices within the game and in political circles have stated that the games should not be played. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick O\u2019Donovan. Photo: PA The minister responsible for sport says the Government have no issue with Israel playing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2049,1113,61,60,3410,43,15645],"class_list":["post-312941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-aidan-fitzmaurice","tag-fai","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-patrick-odonovan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312941","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=312941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}