The FAI in June chose to switch their home game against the Israelis on October 4 out of Ireland due to fears of an escalation on the tennis-ball protest that marred the friendly against Qatar in May.<\/p>\n
Their game, moved to the 4,500-capacity TSC Arena in Ba\u010dka Topola in Serbia, will be played behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
The Irish Examiner understands that Uefa were initially contacted jointly by the FAI and Israeli FA, requesting for both meetings to be held without fans.<\/p>\n
However, no restrictions are planned by the Israeli FA for their three matches in the campaign against Ireland, Austria and Kosovo at the Nagyerdei Stadion, according to the home federation.<\/p>\n
Since Uefa have forced Israel to host games in the neutral country of Hungary after the October 7, 2023 attacks, all are open to supporters.<\/p>\n
The Israeli FA have confirmed to the Irish Examiner their position after initially admitting the matter was under review.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn an internal meeting held last Wednesday in our offices: we decided that our home match against Ireland will be open for spectators,\u201d read their statement.<\/p>\n
The fixture comes just four days after Ireland open their Nations League campaign with their first-ever meeting against Kosovo in Pristina on Thursday, September 24.<\/p>\n
Last week, the group which organised the tennis ball protest, entitled Stop The Game campaign, outlined their determination to ensure neither game against Israel proceeds.<\/p>\n
And the FAI have confirmed in a statement that they will not be offering an away allocation to their loyal supporter base that travel to away fixtures.<\/p>\n
“The Football Association of Ireland confirms that it will not facilitate in-stadium access to Ireland supporters for either of its 2026-27 Uefa Nations League fixtures with Israel.<\/p>\n
“The Association appreciates the passion and commitment that Ireland supporters always show when following its teams around the world, but operational challenges and safety & security concerns led to this decision being made.<\/p>\n
“The Israel Football Association have confirmed that a small allocation of its own supporters will be accommodated for their home game in Debrecen, Hungary on Sunday, September 27th.<\/p>\n
“The second game in Group B3 between the teams will take place in Ba\u010dka Topola, Serbia on Sunday, October 4th. This will be played behind closed doors.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FAI in June chose to switch their home game against the Israelis on October 4 out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[46285,37,66341,66342,5166],"class_list":["post-235883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-fai","tag-israel","tag-league-of-ireland","tag-local-soccer","tag-premiership"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117038584204876596","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235883","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=235883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}