The FAI officials responsible for the decision to play seemed keen to avoid the spotlight and left the team\u2019s Icelandic head coach, Heimir Hallgr\u00edmson, to bear the brunt of public scrutiny. The Israel Football Association launched an extraordinary attack on Hallgr\u00edmson after he made the following statement in the run-up to the game: \u201cWe\u2019re not playing with genocide, we\u2019re playing against genocide. We are playing against Israel; we are not playing with Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
There can be few if any precedents in modern sporting history for the Israel FA\u2019s official response<\/a>:<\/p>\n We have contributed to the world and humanity in countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel Prizes along the way. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy displayed by the Republic of Ireland team coach. We\u2019re not playing with ignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity, we\u2019re playing against the coach who embodies them.<\/p>\n This put paid to any notion that it was possible to keep politics out of sport in this situation. However, the FAI did not see it as an opportunity to revisit their decision to play the games.<\/p>\n Nor did they see any need to publicly defend Hallgr\u00edmson. The Irish taoiseach, Miche\u00e1l Martin, did intervene<\/a> on his behalf, branding the Israeli remarks \u201cunacceptable\u201d and calling for them to be withdrawn: \u201cIsrael can\u2019t keep denying what the world knows, and what the world understands.\u201d But there was no statement from the FAI, although it was reported<\/a> to have complained to UEFA privately.<\/p>\n The FAI officials responsible for the decision to play seemed keen to avoid the spotlight.<\/p>\n The FAI could easily have stated that Hallgr\u00edmson was using the word \u201cgenocide\u201d because this is the official position of the Irish government, which has decided to join<\/a> the South African case at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of violating the Genocide Convention through its actions in Gaza. It could also have briefed Hallgr\u00edmson to make the same point in his defense. There appears to have been no effort to do so.<\/p>\n Ill-equipped to handle the political weight of the situation, the former dentist wilted in the line of fire at the pre-match press conference. Hallgr\u00edmson fielded questions from combative Israeli journalists, hounding him over a past coaching position in Qatar as well as Ireland\u2019s decision to play against Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Under pressure, he apologized for using the word \u201cgenocide\u201d in his previous statement: \u201cIt is a strong word and the wrong word for me to use.\u201d<\/p>\n