{"id":472082,"date":"2026-05-28T23:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/472082\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T23:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:09:08","slug":"republic-of-ireland-v-israel-jamie-mcgrath-expects-controversy-to-heat-up-after-qatar-game-disrupted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/472082\/","title":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland v Israel: Jamie McGrath expects controversy to ‘heat up’ after Qatar game disrupted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republic of Ireland midfielder Jamie McGrath says he expects the controversy surrounding the side’s upcoming Israel fixtures to “heat up” after Thursday’s friendly win over Qatar was disrupted<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Aviva Stadium game – which the Republic of Ireland won 1-0 thanks to Nathan Collins’ early header – was twice briefly interrupted in the first half when home fans threw tennis balls featuring the Palestine flag on to the pitch.<\/p>\n

After the game, RTE reported that protesters were ejected from the ground, and McGrath expects more backlash before the Republic of Ireland face Israel in a neutral venue on 27 September and 4 October in Dublin in the Nations League. <\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Republic of Ireland stalwart Seamus Coleman said the situation “should have been dealt with above us”.<\/p>\n

“I obviously listened to Seamus’ interview and I think he was spot on,” McGrath told BBC Sport NI. <\/p>\n

“It’s obviously a unique scenario. The people [protesters], we have to listen to them, they have the right to do what they do, as long as it’s done in a peaceful way, that’s all that matters.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure it’s going to heat up over the next few months. Like I said, we don’t want to be put into a position. Hopefully the powers above us can work something out or use it for the greater good, I’m not sure what the process will be as it heats up.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day, we’re footballers and we don’t want to be caught in this, but sometimes we might have to.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland midfielder Jamie McGrath says he expects the controversy surrounding the side’s upcoming Israel fixtures to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-472082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472082","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=472082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}