(Sept. 20, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n
UEFA, the governing body of soccer in Europe, rejected a request by the Football Association of Ireland to keep Ireland and Israel from being paired in future competitions, FAI chief executive David Courell said Friday, while noting that the countries had never been in \u201cdirect conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
Courell said the request was made after Ireland was drawn against Israel<\/a> in the UEFA Nations League, a competition involving European national teams. UEFA later said decisions to keep national teams apart are made on a case-by-case basis, with particular attention to situations posing structural security risks. Some national teams are kept apart for political or security reasons.<\/p>\n Israel will play Ireland at a neutral site on Sept. 27 at Nagyerdei Stadion in Debrecen, Hungary, while Ireland\u2019s designated home match on Oct. 4 will be played behind closed doors at TSC Arena in Ba\u010dka Topola, Serbia. The FAI said in June that the match, originally scheduled for Dublin\u2019s Aviva Stadium, was moved from Ireland because of \u201coperational challenges<\/a>\u201d surrounding the game.<\/p>\n Courell said the FAI would not host representatives of the Israel Football Association at the traditional pre-match dinner ahead of Ireland\u2019s home game and had asked that a similar event not be held before the match in Hungary. Sponsor branding is also expected to be reduced, while the FAI is seeking UEFA approval to display \u201cRespect\u201d messaging on stadium LED boards.<\/p>\n The FAI has said it will play the matches despite pressure in Ireland for a boycott over Israeli military operations against Hamas in Gaza. In July, members voted 75-32, with three abstentions, to back the association\u2019s decision to fulfill its UEFA obligations. The FAI estimates that refusing to play would cost it \u20ac5.5 million ($6.3 million) in direct revenue and could also lead to forfeited matches and relegation in the Nations League.<\/p>\n Forfeiting the matches could also harm Ireland\u2019s chances of qualifying for UEFA Euro 2028, which it will co-host along with England, Scotland and Wales.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease do not interpret this as me trivializing the atrocities that are happening in Gaza,\u201d Courell said at Friday\u2019s briefing. \u201cI am acutely conscious of that and am hugely empathetic with it. But equally, I can\u2019t just take my FAI CEO hat off and leave it to the side. I have to do my job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Sept. 20, 2026 \/ JNS) UEFA, the governing body of soccer in Europe, rejected a request by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-621737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}