{"id":629764,"date":"2026-09-19T17:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T17:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/629764\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T17:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T17:26:11","slug":"uefa-defend-draw-policy-after-ireland-request-as-israel-fa-dismiss-fai-comments-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/629764\/","title":{"rendered":"Uefa defend draw policy after Ireland request as Israel FA dismiss FAI comments \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/uefa\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/uefa\">Uefa<\/a> said on Saturday that decisions on whether national \u200cteams should be kept apart in competition draws were made on a case-by-case basis and guided primarily by security \u200cconsiderations, after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/football-association-of-ireland-fai\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/football-association-of-ireland-fai\">FAI<\/a> said its request to avoid future pairings with Israel had been rejected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">FAI \u200bchief executive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/david-courell\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/david-courell\">David Courell<\/a> said on Friday the body had asked Uefa if the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/republic-of-ireland-mnt\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/republic-of-ireland-mnt\">Republic of Ireland<\/a> and Israel could be separated in future draws after the teams were paired in February\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/nations-league\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/nations-league\">Nations League<\/a> draw.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Uefa said requests to stop teams \u2060being drawn against each other were considered individually.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cDecisions to avoid certain teams being drawn \u200cagainst \u200ceach \u200bother are made taking into consideration several factors, especially conditions between the two countries leading to structural risks for security,\u201d Uefa said a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cUefa \u2060handles every situation very carefully on \u200bits own merits and monitors all facts and \u200bdevelopments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/soccer\/2026\/09\/18\/uefa-reject-fais-request-to-be-kept-apart-from-israel-in-future-competition-draws\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Uefa reject FAI\u2019s request to be kept apart from Israel due to no history of \u2018direct conflict\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Courell told reporters the FAI had been informed that such an arrangement would not be possible \u200cbecause Ireland and Israel had \u201cnever been in \u200bdirect conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Israel Football Association also responded to Courell\u2019s remarks, questioning whether a formal request \u2060had been made to Uefa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe question should \u2060be directed at \u200bUefa: was there an official inquiry or request regarding this matter, or is this merely another inconsequential statement?\u201d IFA head of communications Shlomi Barzel told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cSince we long ago stopped getting worked up over statements detached from reality, we are focusing on high-quality professional preparations to achieve our goals on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uefa said on Saturday that decisions on whether national \u200cteams should be kept apart in competition draws were&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16335,61,60,266856,43,1842,30918],"class_list":["post-629764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-david-courell","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-v-israel","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-uefa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629764","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=629764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}