{"id":793726,"date":"2026-10-06T12:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T12:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793726\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T12:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T12:54:11","slug":"republic-of-ireland-1-1-israel-uefa-to-investigate-half-time-row-after-spitting-accusation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793726\/","title":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland 1-1 Israel: Uefa to investigate half-time row after spitting accusation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fixtures, both played at neutral venues, were embroiled in controversy since February when the two teams were drawn to play each other in Group B3.<\/p>\n

The Republic of Ireland players faced persistent calls to withdraw from the games because of the ongoing Israel-Gaza war<\/a> with the “Stop The Game” campaign – organised by the pressure group Irish Sport for Palestine – staging protests before and during Thursday’s game against Austria in Dublin.<\/p>\n

Tensions between the teams boiled over in Serbia with the Republic of Ireland and Israel players also clashing at full-time. <\/p>\n

Speaking after the game, Hallgrimsson said he felt Israel “were trying to intimidate us from kick-off”. <\/p>\n

“I give a lot of credit to the players to stay calm. It could have been a game of yellow and red cards but we were composed, the players were composed, they did well in controlling emotions,” he said. <\/p>\n

Asked about the half-time incident, Israel head coach Ran Ben-Shimon said he did not see “anything”.<\/p>\n

“[At] half-time I was in the dressing room, my room, with my staff,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t see anything. When I get the chance to check I will get back to you. I didn’t see anything, I was in my room.”<\/p>\n

Despite facing pressure to boycott and goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu making himself unavailable for both games, the FAI ultimately decided to fulfil both fixtures.<\/p>\n

The teams did not engage in pre-match formalities in either match, while the Irish players bowed their heads during Israel’s national anthem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fixtures, both played at neutral venues, were embroiled in controversy since February when the two teams were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-793726","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\/793726","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=793726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}