{"id":783368,"date":"2026-09-26T15:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T15:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783368\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T15:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T15:42:11","slug":"ireland-players-vote-to-go-ahead-with-israel-matches-despite-different-views-nations-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783368\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland players vote to go ahead with Israel matches despite \u2018different views\u2019 | Nations League"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republic of Ireland\u2019s Nations League fixtures with Israel will go ahead after players voted on Saturday for the matches to be played.<\/p>\n

The scheduled press conference before Sunday\u2019s first game \u2013 which is being played in Debrecen in Hungary \u2013 was delayed until Saturday afternoon, raising doubts as to whether the match would be cancelled.<\/p>\n

However, the Football Association of Ireland confirmed it will be played. \u201cThe Association made this decision following consultation with the Republic of Ireland players who shared different views and a majority expressed that the fixtures should be played. The Association respects the views of all players involved and appreciates the level of sensitivity concerning these fixtures.\u201d<\/p>\n

A group of players were believed to have held a meeting in the team hotel after missing the initial press conference, which was scheduled for 10.15am local time, and scheduled training at the Nagyerdei Stadium 45 minutes later.<\/p>\n

Uefa officials were unsure of the reason behind the delay, although players had announced they would meet on Friday to discuss the situation. There were reports a player statement would be released before the originally scheduled press conference and speculation on Saturday morning that a player had refused to play in the match. Teams who do not meet obligations can be subject to warnings or fines from Uefa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After Thursday\u2019s 1-0 defeat to Kosovo<\/a> in Pristina that began the Republic\u2019s Nations League campaign, the midfielder Jason Knight said: \u201cIt\u2019s difficult. I don\u2019t think the game should be going ahead, but it is going ahead. We\u2019ll have a deeper talk about it and what that means, we\u2019ll get our thoughts as a group and go from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us have gone through this scenario before, but I\u2019d like to think I\u2019m experienced, thick-skinned and I can get through most things and that is what I will try to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll try to focus on the football as much as I can. I\u2019ll give my view and my thoughts on it [the Israel<\/a> games] when I see fit, but I\u2019ll be trying to focus on the football as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter |Every weekday<\/p>\n

Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This story will update<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republic of Ireland\u2019s Nations League fixtures with Israel will go ahead after players voted on Saturday for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}