Ireland abruptly ends presser as Israelis grill coach on flydubai attack, alleged monkey taunts

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

Ireland beat Israel 3-0 in Hungary in the first match on Tuesday following a turbulent build-up in which the Irish players voted to play the game despite widespread Irish opposition to Israel over the war in Gaza, which was started by the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, invasion.

During that match, the Irish players wore black armbands and pointedly lowered their heads while the Israeli national anthem played. They declined to shake hands with their Israeli opponents before kick-off.

The return leg takes place on Sunday in Backa Topola, Serbia, after the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) refused to host the match at home for security reasons.

Both the coaches for Israel and Ireland, at separate press conferences, said they wanted to keep the focus on the game.

“Football-wise, what’s to come most of all is to control our focus level and keep the focus on that one [Sunday’s game against Israel], don’t lose it,” the coach for Ireland told the press conference. “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.”

Israel coach Ran Ben-Shimon, at his subsequent presser, also refused to be drawn into off-field matters.

“This game is very important to us, [the] points matter to come back to the group, and I’m focusing on how can I lead my team to have a good result tomorrow. This is my only focus; you can trust me on this,” he told reporters.

But one journalist asked Hallgrimsson for his thoughts about the flydubai terror attack on Wednesday, in which an Indian pilot was attacked by the copilot, who tried to crash a plane full of Israelis, only to be thwarted by the pilot and several passengers.

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

An Irish team press officer intervened, saying: “We are not doing any questions like this today. We are doing football questions.”

Another journalist then addressed the Ireland manager, saying: “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.

The Irish delegation then brought the press conference to an abrupt end.