{"id":629956,"date":"2026-09-28T10:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T10:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/629956\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T10:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T10:50:08","slug":"ireland-beat-israel-in-contentious-nations-league-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/629956\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland beat Israel in contentious Nations League match"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Irish team bowed their heads during playing of the Israeli<\/a> national anthem on Sunday night and they declined to shake hands with their opponents, a gesture that is customary before international fixtures.<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/a> played the match wearing black armbands in memory of those killed in Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip<\/a>, and just 24 hours earlier it was unclear whether the match would go ahead at all.<\/p>\n

‘Significant majority’ vote to play<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the players voted in favor of playing what was technically a home match for Israel in Debrecen, Hungary<\/a>, despite widespread opposition to their participation among the Irish public.<\/p>\n

David Courell, the chief executive of the Irish FA (FAI), told a press conference that had been delayed for several hours while players and\u00a0coaches met to discuss the issue, that a significant majority of the squad had voted to play.<\/p>\n

“Based on that, the association took \u2060the decision on behalf of Irish \u200bfootball that this fixture would continue, as we have always intended to fulfil the fixtures,” he said.<\/p>\n

However, the vote was not unanimous and one player, reserve goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu, decided to pull out of the squad for this and a second match against Israel during this international break.<\/p>\n

In Sunday’s match, Troy Parrott netted the opener for Ireland in the 14th minute, with \u200bAdam Idah scoring two minutes later.\u00a0Jack Moylan added\u00a0a third in the 25th to make the final score 3-0.<\/p>\n

\"TroyTroy Parrott opened the scoring for IrelandImage: Inpho Photography\/IMAGO<\/p>\n

Few supporters present<\/p>\n

The fixture was played in a largely empty stadium in Debrecen<\/a>, with just a few hundred Israeli fans and a handful of Irish supporters in attendance.<\/p>\n

The FAI had not reserved any tickets for their fans to attend the match and public broadcaster RTE showed the match without the usual halftime analysis.<\/p>\n

Over the previous few days, the Irish team had been under intense pressure from Irish fans and politicians to boycott the fixture.<\/p>\n

Ireland has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian<\/a> cause and formally recognized a Palestinian state in 2024<\/a> alongside Spain and Norway. Dublin has also repeatedly criticized Israel over the Gaza conflict.<\/p>\n

A Hamas<\/a> raid into Israel on October 7, 2023,<\/a> killed around 1,200 people, prompting\u00a0Israel’s attack on Gaza\u00a0which has killed over 73,000.<\/p>\n

Ireland’s next Nations League match was originally scheduled to be played in Dublin on October 4, but due to security concerns, it has been moved to the Serbian<\/a> town of Backa Topola, where it is to be played behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

Edited by: Jonathan Harding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish team bowed their heads during playing of the Israeli national anthem on Sunday night and they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-629956","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\/629956","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=629956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}