{"id":131845,"date":"2026-05-26T14:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T14:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/131845\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T14:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T14:50:10","slug":"ireland-players-wont-be-held-back-from-taking-stand-on-israel-says-nathan-collins-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/131845\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland players \u2018won\u2019t be held back\u2019 from taking stand on Israel, says Nathan Collins \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republic of Ireland<\/a> captain Nathan Collins<\/a> has said the players need to \u201ctrust the FAI and the Government\u201d to make the right decision on the upcoming Nations League<\/a> games between Ireland and Israel.<\/p>\n

Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s team are scheduled to play Israel away on September 27th, most likely in Hungary, and then at the Aviva Stadium on October 4th. But there is widespread opposition to the staging of the fixtures, despite the FAI\u2019s stance that they will fulfil the games.<\/p>\n

Last November, the FAI sent a motion to Uefa calling for the <\/a>Israeli FA\u2019s suspension<\/a> from European club and international competitions.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Thursday\u2019s friendly against Qatar in Dublin, Collins was asked if the Ireland players intended discussing the situation among themselves, with the first of the Israel games only four months away.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThere will be something for the players to talk about. It\u2019s been tough, though, because the squads have been so split.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously you\u2019ve had a lot of senior players in the last camp (for the World Cup playoff against the Czech Republic in March) and a lot of different amounts here, so we all need to be there together at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor players, we just have to trust the FAI. We have to trust the Government that they know what they\u2019re doing. We\u2019re picked to play football. We\u2019re picked to represent our country. It\u2019s a tough situation for us to be in and we have to trust the people around us that they know what they are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brentford defender Collins (25) said he would respect any of his Ireland teammates if they choose to take a stand on the Israel games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we would speak about is hard to say, because you need the whole group together. But if individuals want to take a stand, we are not going to stand against them, we are not going to hold them back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are entitled to their own opinions. If they are very strong about that, we can\u2019t stop them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland captain Nathan Collins has said the players need to \u201ctrust the FAI and the Government\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[37,7182,44118,4003,4005],"class_list":["post-131845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-israel","tag-israel-hamas-conflict","tag-nathan-collins","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-uefa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116641439641850946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}