The diplomatic and sporting spat surrounding the Republic of Ireland national football team intensified on Wednesday morning, threatening to turn upcoming UEFA fixtures into an international controversy. Speaking at a press conference ahead of Ireland’s match against Kosovo, captain Dara O’Shea revealed that the squad will hold an internal meeting on Friday to determine whether to stage a political protest against the Israeli national team in their upcoming Nations League clash. Among the measures actively under consideration is an organized refusal to participate in the traditional pre-match handshake with Israeli players during the opening protocol.
1+“We’ve already spoken about sitting down together on Friday and discussing it as a squad,” O’Shea stated when pressed about potential protest actions against Israel. “I don’t think we’d be doing our jobs properly if we didn’t focus on the upcoming match first, but on Friday we’ll discuss everything openly. It’s a difficult and unusual situation for us, and we must make a collective decision and respect everyone’s views. We can’t brush it aside. We knew there would be noise surrounding these fixtures, and we’ve tried to stay off social media.”
“The headlines that followed the things I said distracted attention from what matters most,” Hallgrímsson conceded. “Perhaps leadership-wise, it wasn’t smart of me to divert focus in that manner. This is a complex period for us, and we must concentrate on football.”
1+Later in the international window, Israel will face Ireland in two fixtures scheduled for September 27 and October 4, hosted at neutral venues in Debrecen, Hungary, and Bačka Topola, Serbia. The Chief Executive of the Football Association of Ireland previously said the team is playing the fixtures strictly to avoid severe UEFA regulatory sanctions. In Jerusalem, football officials continue to weigh canceling the traditional official delegation dinner and submitting a formal UEFA complaint over illicit political interference in sport.