The Republic of Ireland\u2019s home Nations League match with Austria at the Aviva Stadium was interrupted twice in the first half as a result of a protest involving tennis balls followed by a pitch invader.<\/p>\n
Just before the 20th minute, a number of tennis balls wrapped in stickers featuring the Palestinian flag and the text \u201c#StopTheGame\u201d were launched onto the pitch from the corner to the right of the Austria goal.<\/p>\n
Then, around the 35th minute, a man ran onto the field of play from the opposite side, carrying what appeared to be a Palestinian flag, and was immediately tackled by security and carried off.<\/p>\n
The Press Association has contacted the Football Association of Ireland and UEFA for comment.<\/p>\n
UEFA\u2019s disciplinary body will assess reports from the match before deciding on any potential next steps.<\/p>\n
It has been a tumultuous week for the Republic. Their two Nations League fixtures against Israel have divided opinion in the country, sparking protests, including one which took place pre-match outside the stadium, advertised on social media by a campaign group called Stop the Game.<\/p>\n
Players voted last Saturday morning to fulfil the following day\u2019s fixture against Israel in Debrecen, Hungary, which they won 3-0.<\/p>\n
The Republic\u2019s behind-closed-doors \u2018home\u2019 leg in Backa Topola, Serbia, is scheduled for Sunday, and manager Heimir Hallgrimsson on Wednesday confirmed it was their intention to play.<\/p>\n
Goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu has made himself unavailable for selection for both Israel fixtures, but was included in Hallgrimsson\u2019s squad to face Austria at the Aviva.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republic of Ireland\u2019s home Nations League match with Austria at the Aviva Stadium was interrupted twice in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1113,61,60,1842,112],"class_list":["post-642299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-fai","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642299","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=642299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}