Ireland-Israel, tension again before the match

The tension that has lasted more than a week around the double Nations League fixture between Ireland and Israel, which are in the same group, shows no sign of easing. Ahead of the second match between the two teams, which will be played on neutral ground in Serbia and behind closed doors, given the risk of protests in Dublin, the press conference of Irish coach Heimir Hallgrimsson was abruptly interrupted while he was answering questions from Israeli journalists, which he later described as a “verbal attack”.

An Israeli journalist recalled the “terrorist-motivated” incident that took place a few days earlier on a Flydubai flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel and asked the coach to say something about “the people he supports, whose ideology is based on murder”.

An official from the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) answered on his behalf, saying: “We don’t answer questions like that today, only football.”

Another then claimed that the Irish players “called our players monkeys during the match…”, but was interrupted by the FAI official, who, while saying “that is completely false”, ordered the journalist to remove the microphone and ended the press conference early.

The conference then resumed in an adjoining room without the presence of the Israeli journalists.