Boy oh boycott: After a day of chaos for the FAI, the Ireland-Israel fixtures remain set to go ahead… (as things stand!)

A day of high drama ended on Saturday with the Football Association of Ireland licking its wounds, looking at the floor, and leaving its Israeli FA counterparts as the voices of sensibility and reason.

The UEFA Nations’ League fixtures between the two countries, scheduled to take place on Sunday in Debrecan, Hungary, and next week in Serbia (for Ireland’s ‘Home’ tie), have been the focus of an increasingly intense scrutiny since the two teams were drawn together in February. The FAI’s subsequent reasoning that the games would have to go ahead added more embers into the mix. Their recent party line had been that the players would meet on Friday and discuss protocols around today’s game – such as handshakes, symbolic acts of protest – with any talk of an eleventh-hour boycott seemingly fanciful.

However, a sense that something was beginning to brew emerged on Saturday morning when Ireland’s pre-training press conference in the Hungarian city was unexpectantly postponed.

The plot thickened shortly thereafter when it became clear that, not only had the training session itself also been delayed, but the players themselves were still encamped at the team hotel, with UEFA representatives apparently unable to get in touch with anyone from the FAI.

Reports then began to emerge that Bolton Wanderers’ Gavin Bazunu, one of the Irish goalkeepers, was increasingly unhappy about the prospect of participating in the fixtures, and had stated his desire not to play, with some other players now sharing this stance.

At this stage, it was suspected – surely believed – that a domino effect was beginning to occur. With speculation now fervent online, it was even suggested that Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrímsson had led individual consultations with each of his players in the preceding 24 hours. The Irish manager himself had become embroiled in a very public spat with the Israeli FA in recent days after his comments that he and his players were, “…playing against genocide.”

As of noon, Irish time, the players and management were still locked inside the team hotel, with behind-the-scenes meetings taking place. The lazy afternoon sun in Debrecan was beginning to drag when, suddenly, a double-edged announcement revealed that there’d be a press conference at last, with a rescheduled training session also taking place immediately after. Was the game going ahead, after all?

What followed next was an abject study in humiliation and, quite possibly, masochism, with the whole sorry spectacle available to watch here.

FAI CEO David Courell began by saying:

“This morning a player expressed their discomfort with fulfilling this fixture and indicated their intent to withdraw from the squad… this new variable required time and deliberation for the rest of the squad to consider. What proceeded was another four hours of conversation… a lot of positions [were] presented, and I think it’s important to say… we were fully respectful for everyone to have their point of view on these topics.”

Then, in an incredibly dramatic moment, Courell revealed that,

“Ultimately, within the last 90 minutes we carried out a vote amongst the squad to establish their sentiment on fulfilling the fixtures, and there was a significant majority that was returned with the intention to continue [with the fixture].”

Courell’s framing of the vote as having a “significant” majority has since been disputed: on Saturday evening, former Ireland manager Brian Kerr sensationally revealed live on Virgin Media television that Gavin Bazunu was excluded from the vote, or possibly not told about it. Kerr suggested it may have been as close as 14 votes to 8 in favour of proceeding with the game – and that’s without Bazunu’s ‘No’ vote.

Brian Kerr, in an extremely worrying revelation, went on to say that he had been speaking to Bazunu before he came on air and that:

“Gavin has been shunned by some of the players, and it’s been suggested to him that it’d be better if he left the squad.”

Kerr said he thought this was disgraceful.

Whilst that knowledge didn’t emerge until later, it’s ironic that the first question asked to Heimir Hallgrímsson (from RTÉ) at the press conference was,

“How do you feel the players have been protected during this [ongoing row about fulfilling the fixtures]?”

Heimir looked ashen faced, drained and defeated. And that was before he faced a barrage of emotionally charged questions from some Israeli journalists:

“Hey, Coach. I don’t know if you know what happened on 7^th October… you daren’t say nothing about that… what do you have to say about that, and the migrant workers that built the stadiums in Qatar [where you previously managed?]?”

“Coach, do you regret saying that Israel is committing genocide?”

“This match has been described as especially troubling; how do you compare that to Ireland playing Nazi Germany in 1936 and 1939, Coach?”

There is a feeling that the beleaguered manager has been hung out to dry, and neither the CEO, the Director of Football, or the Press Officer – all seated beside him – jumped in to help when faced with the barrage.

The FAI are pushing ahead with these matches as they fear “astronomical fines” (according to Lansdowne Roar’s David Dunne), and other, unspecified, heavy sanctions from UEFA. There are, too, unthinkable doubts, and shadow threats, which linger over Ireland’s role as joint-hosts for Euro 2028.

In another timeline from yesterday, people would be talking about the result of a heroic, brave, correct, and unforgettable last stand by the Irish players, with the only response needed in the face of any threatened sanctions being: Who Cares?

As it stands, Gavin Bazunu is the only man out of the matchday squad, and he released this statement on Instagram last night:

Perhaps that’ll be the end of it. Perhaps not. As Hallgrímsson said during the doomed press conference, there are still “ongoing discussions” to be had. If the match does go ahead (as now looks likely), the atmosphere and level of protest in Dublin on Thursday evening for the Republic’s clash with Austria will be telling, especially with Ireland v Israel Part Two scheduled for next weekend as well.

The whole thing is an unsavoury mess. The revelations about Bazunu and how he has been allegedly treated are particularly concerning.

In March, after the aftermath of Ireland’s World Cup play-off defeat to Czechia, Hallgrímsson conceded, “Pain… all we feel is pain.” Yesterday, it was a case of, “nobody is comfortable at the moment.”

Conflict and misery are familiar bedfellows with Irish football, but this may be its ugliest chapter yet.