Israel FA slams Heimir Hallgrimsson over ‘playing against genocide’ claim

Israel’s football association has reacted with fury to comments by Ireland’s manager Heimir Hallgrimsson about “playing against genocide”, accusing him of “stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy”. Ireland’s two upcoming Nations League matches against Israel are being played at neutral venues but Hallgrimsson, who is Icelandic, is opposed in principle to playing the games due to Israel’s actions in Gaza. Most commented 1 German state elections: AfD makes sweeping gains Europe 593 comments 2 Pro-Putin party set to retain power as Ukraine drones hit Russia Russia-Ukraine war 439 comments He said at the weekend: “We’re not playing with genocide, we’re playing against genocide. So we’re playing against Israel. We’re not playing with Israel.” Top stories 1 The ten best winter sun and festive Times Holidays to book now Promoted content That has now prompted a furious response on the Israeli FA’s X account, which posted: “We have contributed to the world and humanity in countless fields, earning an impressive number of Nobel Prizes along the way. “Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy displayed by @IrelandFootball team coach. We’re not playing with ignorance, hypocrisy and stupidity, We’re playing against the coach who embodies them.” Advertisement Israel’s “home” game takes place in Hungary next Sunday, before Ireland’s nominal home match seven days later behind closed doors in northern Serbia. Top stories 1 The ten best winter sun and festive Times Holidays to book now Promoted content Hallgrimsson’s press conference was one of the more extraordinary given by an Ireland manager. “There’s not a Uefa ProLicence seminar that prepares you for something like this,” he said last week. “It’s probably the same for you guys. We’re sat here 20, 30 minutes and we haven’t spoken a word about football. And this is a press conference on a squad playing four national games.” Hallgrimsson kicks tennis balls bearing the Palestine flag off of the pitch after Ireland’s friendly with Qatar in May was disrupted by fans protesting against the team playing games against Israel Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile Hallgrimsson pointed out that he felt Uefa was being inconsistent by banning Russia but not Israel. “I haven’t had any explanation why one is banned and the other one is not.” Hallgrimsson looked tanned and healthy after some summer weeks spent walking back in Iceland, but his brow was knotted. He admitted he was struggling, translating his thoughts from Icelandic to English and also getting to grips with the Irish culture which makes the double-header against Israel so unpalatable for so many people. However he is prepared to get on with it and make the best of a bad lot. An attempt to rally the nation and the players may, in that context, come back to bite him. Advertisement “I’ve said before, we’re not playing with genocide, we’re playing against genocide. So we’re playing against Israel. We’re not playing with Israel,” Hallgrimsson said. “Hopefully we can play good football. That’s my job here. I’m hired here to think about the football things and others on other things.” He hasn’t spoken about genocide before, though commented back in May that “the best answer for us is just to win this game, to win this war against them [Israel]. That would be a perfect answer from my end.” The former Ireland international Packie Bonner, who was instrumental in Hallgrimsson’s appointment and is in a position of influence both at the FAI and in Uefa, said something similar when defending Ireland’s decision to play the matches — the best message we can send out is to beat them was the gist of it — but those remarks didn’t go down particularly well. Hallgrimsson knows Bonner through their joint Uefa connections and it sounds like they have been talking. The Israeli side are outraged by Hallgrimsson’s latest remarks while opponents of the game in Ireland will not like the comments either, regarding them as trivialising a matter which is far more important than a game of football. What if Israel beat Ireland? Is the moral victory theirs instead, as Hallgrimsson’s comments would seem to suggest? Collins, the Ireland captain, has privately expressed his unhappiness that players have been hung out to dry adam davy/pa A couple of smoother operators have been trying to take the focus off the manager when it comes to this contentious topic. The past few days has brought an unprecedented campaign by the FAI to seize the initiative back, which it has struggled to do since Hallgrimsson was left on his own to answer questions about Israel when the draw was made back in February. In recent months, the captain Nathan Collins, now injured, has privately expressed his dismay about the players also being hung out to dry. The director of football John Martin and chief executive David Courell very publicly stepped forward last week. Advertisement Last Monday, while deftly deflecting flak on other matters, Martin took the “blame me” line when it came to the match against Israel going ahead. Then after Hallgrimsson, Courell on Friday offered a similar message, albeit in more measured tones. Hallgrimsson said he was “really happy” that the executive had come on board “so hopefully I can do as much thinking and talking and focusing on the football side”. It may not be quite as simple as that, with the players arriving in camp on Sunday. Behind the scenes, in what Courell admitted was a virtually unprecedented intervention by the association, Martin and others have been talking to the players as well as Hallgrimsson and his assistant John O’Shea to ensure they all stay on board. Hallgrimsson is insistent that his squad get straight down to work to prepare for the first game, against Kosovo on Thursday Pavel Lebeda/Sportsfile “I don’t tend to insert myself into those relationships, that is between the head coach and the players and that should be respected,” Courell said. “But over recent months, given this has evolved into another sphere, and from our perspective, it is an association decision, we wanted to be very clear and outline our logic to the players: how the board arrived at this position and how they did so with the interests of Irish football in mind.” That approach seems to have worked in terms of corralling the players — some of whom were clearly torn to some degree between showing solidarity towards Palestine or their fellow players — and now it is about what happens next. Advertisement To those who say let’s get on with the football, it needs to be pointed out that this is a camp like no other. The usual branding was absent behind the manager when he made his squad announcement at FAI headquarters last week, with Courell denying sponsors had taken fright, but admitting that “there is an element of recognition that these are a unique couple of fixtures”. For the “home” game against Israel in northern Serbia, there will be no advertising, just “Respect” messaging on the LED boards around the pitch. Courell said Ireland would be doing the bare minimum when it came to observing mandatory protocols, but the more traditional events such as dining with the opposition association was off the menu when it came to the Israel ties. The player situation remains tricky, however. The usual round of media interviews has been severely curtailed, a decision announced on Friday which may have left some reporters wishing they had pushed Hallgrimsson even harder on Israel despite protests from the FAI media officer. Hallgrimsson is insistent that the squad get straight down to work to prepare for the first game, a difficult challenge against Kosovo on Thursday, and then any protest by the players can be worked out after that. The issue of whether or not players exchange handshakes — following a lead taken by the Ireland women’s basketball team who refused to shake hands when they played Israel recently — is now becoming a topic. What would the key Ireland midfielder Finn Azaz — a frequent visitor to Israel where he has relatives and who has spoken previously about how his now deceased grandmother was a general in the IDF decades ago — make of that? Azaz, the Ireland midfielder, is a frequent visitor to Israel, where he has relatives Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile “When the players come in, it’s something they’ll discuss,” Courell says regarding any handshake with the opposition. “There are certain protocols that there’s flexibility on, there’s others that are not. I can’t really expand any further.” Advertisement The Israel FA has also been refusing interview requests and stressed that press conferences “will be focused solely on professional matters related to the game”. The tone adopted is that the FAI has done everything reasonable in its powers to try to get Uefa to ban Israel — an ongoing issue Courell stressed — but won’t step over the line of being isolated or left open to sanction, be it financial or otherwise. By demonstrating its credentials, the FAI hopes that the protestors who want to stop the game will be marginalised and that demonstrations planned for the visit of Austria to Dublin on October 1, sandwiched in between the two Israel games, will be kept to a minimum. That would be some result for Bonner and other members of the board, but for now they are anxiously looking over their shoulders.