{"id":644852,"date":"2026-10-04T21:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T21:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/644852\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T21:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T21:28:12","slug":"report-ireland-coach-accuses-israeli-player-of-spitting-at-him-in-tussle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/644852\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Ireland Coach Accuses Israeli Player Of Spitting At Him In Tussle"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a confrontation at the entrance to the tunnel at halftime in the UEFA Nations League game between Ireland and Israel in Serbia this evening, with one of the Irish staff members accusing an Israeli player of spitting at him.<\/p>\n

Ireland entered the halftime break leading 1-0, with Troy Parrott having given them the lead from the penalty spot in the 39th minute.<\/p>\n

Tensions had been high throughout the opening half, with a number of firm challenges going in on both sides. Two Israeli players were booked, with captain Dor Peretz fortunate not to be sent off after a number of hefty challenges. Liam Scales was also given a yellow card.<\/p>\n

Things then boiled over after the halftime whistle sounded, leading to a confrontation between the two teams.<\/p>\n

Ireland coach accuses Israel player of spitting at him<\/p>\n

Numerous members of the media present at the fixture have reported that Ireland coach Damien Doyle alleged he was spat at by an Israeli player, leading to a flash point between the two teams.<\/p>\n

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4 October 2026; Players and officials tussle as the teams leave the pitch at half-time in the UEFA Nations League B match between the Republic of Ireland and Israel at TSC Arena in Backa Topola, Serbia. Photo by Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

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4 October 2026; Players and officials tussle as the teams leave the pitch at half-time in the UEFA Nations League B match between the Republic of Ireland and Israel at TSC Arena in Backa Topola, Serbia. Photo by Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

Both sets of players would eventually be led down the tunnel after Spanish referee Juan Mart\u00ednez Munuera intervened, telling both teams to be ‘clever’ and avoid raising tensions further.<\/p>\n

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Sean O’Connor of the Irish Independent has reported<\/a> that Serbian security staff have acknowledged that they also witnessed the incident taking place.<\/p>\n

Tension rise before Ireland vs Israel<\/p>\n

The Ireland players held a number of protests on the pitch ahead of the meeting between the sides last week.<\/p>\n

They would bow their heads during the Israeli national anthem, also ignoring the traditional pre-match handshakes.<\/p>\n

Captain Dara O’Shea also did not acknowledge his opposite number Manor Solomon during the coin toss. Black armbands were also sported to honour those who have lost their lives in Gaza over the last three years.<\/p>\n

Those actions were repeated ahead of this game, with Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher the captain on this occasion.<\/p>\n

The Israeli team would also wore black armbands for the second game, being given permission to do so by UEFA ‘in memory of those murdered in the October 7 massacre’.<\/p>\n

There were some remarkable scenes during Ireland’s pre-match press conference<\/a> on Saturday, with an Israel journalist making an allegation of racism against Irish players from last weekend’s fixture. The event was immediately shut down, with FAI press officer labelling the allegation as ‘completely untrue’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a confrontation at the entrance to the tunnel at halftime in the UEFA Nations League game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,190677,43],"class_list":["post-644852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644852","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=644852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}