Ireland cuts short press conference ahead of Nations League match with Israel in Serbia

The Republic of Ireland's pre-match press conference was cut short on Saturday on the eve of their second Nations League match against Israel in Serbia. The session ended abruptly as head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson fielded questions from Israeli journalists.

Ireland beat Israel 3-0 in Hungary in their opening Nations League fixture on Tuesday after a turbulent build-up in which the squad voted to fulfil the tie despite unease within the team over the war in Gaza. During that first match the Irish players wore armbands, pointedly lowered their heads while the Israeli national anthem was played and there were no handshakes between the captains.

The exchange that precipitated the shutdown began when a reporter asked Hallgrimsson about an incident on a Flydubai flight from the UAE to Israel, saying: "What do you say about the people that you support? Their ideology is based on murder," and adding: "Just this week, one of them tried to kill 170 Israeli passengers, including 27 innocent children and thousands of others." An Irish press officer intervened, saying: "We are not doing any questions like this today. We are doing football questions."

A second journalist then accused Irish players of racial abuse, asking: "Your players call our players monkeys during the match …" and was immediately interrupted by an FAI official who insisted, "that is completely untrue," as the microphone was taken away. The reporter protested, "Don’t touch me, don’t touch me," and the Irish delegation brought the press conference to an abrupt end.

Israeli authorities publicly condemned the actions taken by the Irish players, and the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, accused Dublin of being on "the wrong side of history".

Hallgrimsson addressed the squad's emotional state in remarks at the session, saying: "Surviving this, coming out of it together as one would be a massive win for me. That is coming from my heart." He added: "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."

He continued: "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." On match-day routines he said: "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."

The return leg is scheduled for Sunday in Backa Topola, after the Football Association of Ireland refused to host the match at home for security reasons.