Republic of Ireland press conference cut short ahead of Nations League match against Israel

The Republic of Ireland’s press conference on the eve of their second Nations League match against Israel in Serbia was cut short as the head coach, Heimir Hallgrimsson, fielded questions from Israeli journalists.

Ireland beat Israel 3-0 in Hungary in their first match on Tuesday following a turbulent buildup in which the Irish squad voted to fulfil the fixture despite unease among the team over the war in Gaza.

During that match the Irish players wore armbands and pointedly lowered their heads while the Israeli national anthem played. There were no handshakes between the captains before kick-off.

With the return leg taking place on Sunday in Backa Topola after the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) refused to host the match at home for security reasons, it was the Ireland manager’s pre-match press conference on Saturday that gave rise to new tensions.

One reporter questioned Hallgrimsson on his thoughts about the incident on Wednesday during a Flydubai flight from the UAE to Israel.

“What do you say about the people that you support? Their ideology is based on murder,” one journalist asked. “Just this week, one of them tried to kill 170 Israeli passengers, including 27 innocent children and thousands of others.”

An Irish press officer replied: “We are not doing any questions like this today. We are doing football questions.”

Another journalist then addressed the Ireland manager: “Your players call our players monkeys during the match …”, only to be immediately interrupted by an FAI official repeatedly insisting “that is completely untrue,” while the microphone was taken away from the reporter.

“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me,” the journalist exclaimed, as the Irish delegation brought the press conference to an abrupt end.

Israeli authorities have condemned the actions taken by the Irish players, with the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, accusing Dublin of being on “the wrong side of history”.

“Surviving this, coming out of it together as one would be a massive win for me. That is coming from my heart,” Hallgrimsson said. “All the challenges that this team has gone through, all the criticism. Just surviving as a group after this game, that would be a big win for me and for this group, for the association. There’s been a lot of emotions from the people in Ireland about this, and obviously that affects the players as well.

“We want to do good, but it’s always going to be a challenge when the environment is as noisy as it is. So we try to focus on the football side, and we’ve done a lot of things to help in that area.

“One change that we’ve done in the last games is before we go on to the pitch, we do a little prayer and a huddle with the players and all the staff, just to cool our heads before we go on to the pitch.

“Conor Coventry has taken that part, so he is now called Brother Coventry in the squad. But it’s really good when you go into a high-intensity and big-pressure game like we’ve been doing, to start the game with cool heads.”