From the Liveblog of
Monday, October 5, 2026
Ireland coach wants UEFA to keep team apart from Israel after contentious games
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Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrímsson wants UEFA to keep Ireland and Israel apart in future competitions after their contentious Nations League games.
The teams drew 1-1 in Ireland’s “home” game in Backa Topola, Serbia on Sunday, a week after Ireland’s 3-0 win in Israel’s “home” game in Debrecen, Hungary.
The buildup to both matches was fraught, with the Ireland players coming under pressure not to play the games because of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The enmity between the sides grew after the Irish players wore black armbands and bowed their heads during the Israeli national anthem before the first match. They repeated the gesture for the second match, when the Israel players wore black armbands for the victims of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 onslaught.
Hallgrímsson tells Ireland’s national broadcaster RTÉ afterward that he thinks UEFA should keep the sides apart in future.
“There is obviously a big support for Palestine in Ireland. There are not many countries that support Palestine as much as Ireland does,” Hallgrímsson says. “I wouldn’t wish any national team to go through what we have gone through these two weeks, so maybe UEFA just needs to step in and do something.”
“There’s been a lot of those incidents that could have escalated,” Hallgrímsson says. “We were clever enough to stop it before it went too far. I felt it was kind of the intention to try to intimidate us and make us do something stupid.”
The Times of Israel Community.