{"id":627742,"date":"2026-09-26T03:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T03:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/627742\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T03:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T03:40:11","slug":"israels-match-with-republic-of-ireland-will-be-an-eerie-occasion-as-political-debate-rages-on-republic-of-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/627742\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s match with Republic of Ireland will be an eerie occasion as political debate rages on | Republic of Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

The match is being played in a neutral country and the stands are likely to be empty but Sunday\u2019s Nations League fixture between Israel and the Republic of Ireland<\/a> will nonetheless have the eyes of the world upon it.<\/p>\n

Since February\u2019s draw paired the sides against each other, voices across Irish society have demanded a boycott of the match. The Republic of Ireland\u2019s government says Israel is committing genocide<\/a> through its military action in Gaza, and the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) wants Israel suspended from international competition. But unless Ireland\u2019s players decide not to take the field in the Hungarian city of Debrecen, the match will go ahead.<\/p>\n

The debate over these two upcoming games, with Ireland to \u201chost\u201d Israel in a return fixture behind closed doors in the Serbian town of Backa Topola on Sunday week, has continued for months. But the temperature has risen as the first fixture approaches. Remarks made by the Ireland head coach, Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson, that his side were \u201cplaying against genocide\u201d prompted a stern response this week from the Israel Football Association (IFA), which accused the Icelander of \u201cignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity\u201d. Hallgr\u00edmsson was then backed publicly by the Taoiseach, Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a>, who described the IFA\u2019s remarks as \u201cunacceptable\u201d and said they should be withdrawn.<\/p>\n

At the same time as Martin\u2019s intervention his government faced protests by Irish fans who want the game called off. One organisation, Stop the Game, criticised the \u201chypocrisy\u201d of Irish sports ministers announcing they would refuse to attend the fixture on principle, while also failing to support a boycott. Another group, Irish Sport for Palestine, published an open letter signed by more than 160 athletes calling for the players to act where their leaders wouldn\u2019t. \u201cNot playing the game would be the most sporting thing you could do,\u201d the letter said. \u201cThrough your leadership and courage it would show the power of sport to unite, remind us of the shared values that connect us all, and have an impact far beyond the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is clear that all this scrutiny is being felt by Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s squad. Before Thursday night\u2019s Nations League<\/a> defeat in Kosovo, Dara O\u2019Shea said the squad had found themselves in a \u201cdifficult\u201d and \u201cunusual\u201d position, and had agreed to decide a collective approach to the match in Debrecen. \u201cIt\u2019s something that can\u2019t be brushed over,\u201d O\u2019Shea said. \u201cWhatever decision that we go through as players is taken as one and everybody\u2019s view is respected as well.\u201d That decision is expected to stop short of a boycott, however. The midfielder Jason Knight, speaking after Thursday\u2019s game, said: \u201cI don\u2019t think the game should be going ahead but it is going ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saied Abu Farchi of Israel was sent off after his goal celebration led to a second booking during the defeat by Austria on Thursday. Photograph: Matthias Schr\u00e4der\/AP<\/p>\n

It has been a winding road for the FAI to get to this point. Last November its general assembly voted to request that Uefa suspend Israel<\/a> from its competitions for a breach of its statutes. At the same time its president, Paul Cooke, said Ireland would play Israel if drawn against them in Uefa competition. In June the FAI said Uefa had granted a request that its home fixture be played in a \u201cneutral venue and behind closed doors\u201d owing to the \u201coperational challenges\u201d of delivering a fixture against Israel on home soil. In July, at an extraordinary general meeting, FAI delegates confirmed their support for playing the fixture, voting in favour by 68% to 32%. The given justification related to concerns over \u201cthe profound impact that any non-fulfilment of Uefa fixtures would have on Irish football as a whole\u201d.<\/p>\n

Those calling for a boycott have pushed back on the concerns \u201cnonfulfilment\u201d would have had on Irish prospects, pointing to recent punishments meted out to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Those three each boycotted fixtures against Belarusian teams and Uefa responded with the traditional sanction of a 3-0 walkover and, in one case, a \u20ac5,000 fine.<\/p>\n

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Irish media will limit their engagement with the match, with the broadcaster RT\u00c9 showing the game live but with no studio coverage and with commentary from the international feed. Israel, meanwhile, are expecting no more than 100 supporters to attend this \u201chome\u201d match, with the tickets largely purchased by fans living in Hungary. Each of these elements will further contribute to what is likely to be an eerie encounter in Debrecen. Both teams need a win after opening defeats, Israel losing in Austria, but there can have been few international matches where the result has been of less import to those watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The match is being played in a neutral country and the stands are likely to be empty but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-627742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627742","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=627742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}