Performative nonsense is fitting end to a set of fixtures that should never have happened

07:00, 04 Oct 2026Updated 08:29, 04 Oct 2026

Madness. Will the ‘stick to football’ brigade speak out about Saturday’s shambolic end to the Irish press conference?

The performative nonsense that was an Israeli journalist asking Heimir Hallgrímsson about the attempt to crash a Tel Aviv Flydubai airplane and framing it the way she did was a new low.

As she was being filmed by a colleague, she asked: “What do you say about... the ideology is based on murder, just this week one of them tried to kill 100 Israeli passengers, 27 children. Innocent children and thousands of others.”

The Irish sports media has come in for a bit of a kicking this past week for not ‘sticking to football’. But this?

Just 90 more minutes of this insanity foisted upon us by a cowardly Uefa, a governing body that has, on this issue, decided not to govern.

Just 90 more minutes before we can close this dark chapter and move on, without forgetting why the lights went out.

It won’t necessarily be business as usual from tomorrow. There are post-mortems to be had, questions to be answered, bridges to be rebuilt. But at least this window will be behind us.

Ever since the draw in February, these two games have cast a shadow over Irish football.

The distraction of a World Cup play-off was agonisingly brief. After the penalties in Prague at the end of March, these games became the story.

We had protests during the Qatar friendly and a decision - the wrong one - to move tonight’s game from Dublin to a small town in northern Serbia.

We had a seven-page document sent to General Assembly members outlining potential sanctions ahead of an EGM vote on the games, which led to accusations of scare-mongering.

We had a player meeting on Friday in Pristina, then another one on Saturday in Debrecen, on a day of chaos ahead of the first game against Israel.

Then we had Austria and an overwhelming show of support to Heimir Hallgrímsson and his players from the 45,000 in attendance.

And yesterday we seemed to be heading towards a relatively normal matchday minus-one, as per Uefa lingo.

There was team news - and the good news that stand-in captain Dara O’Shea had remained at home as his wife was due to deliver their second child.

There was even time for a bit of a laugh, as Heimir Hallgrímsson revealed Conor Coventry’s new nickname and the reason behind it.

“One change that we have done in the last games is before we go onto the pitch we do a little prayer in a huddle with the players and all the staff, just to cool our heads before we go onto the pitch,” he said.

“Conor Coventry has taken that part, so he is called ‘Brother’ Coventry in the squad.

“But it is really good when you go into a high-intensity and big-pressure game, like we have been doing, to start the game with cool heads.

“Instead of motivating ourselves by shouting at each other and screaming before the game, we try to cool players down so we have clear focus when we go onto the pitch.”

He also reflected on the difficulties of this four-game window and how they might impact his players going into future Ireland camps.

“Surviving this camp, coming out of it together as one would be a massive win for me. That is coming from my heart,” he said.

“I think all the challenges that this team has gone through, all the criticism, yeah, I think just surviving as a group after this game, that would be a big win for me and for this group, for the association.

“That would be a big, big win if we go through this undamaged.

“And if we go to the coach, that is judged on winning and losing games, obviously by having another three points and seven points would be more probably than I could have asked for before the camp, knowing what was to come.

“You never know when you go into an environment like this how a player would react, but that has been the most pleasing thing for me, to see the togetherness and how they stand up for each other.

“Whatever they have done, they have done it with respect to the situation, to each other. After this, I think this band of brothers will be stronger than ever.

“All the obstacles that this group will face in the future will be lesser than it actually is.”

And then the Flydubai moment, which was quickly cut down by Hallgrímsson’s media officer.

The follow-up from another Israeli journalist - alleging racism against the Ireland players - brought the live section of the conference to an abrupt end.

It was straight from the Trump playbook. Every accusation is a confession. There was one credible complaint of racism last week - Israeli fans towards Adam Idah and James Abankwah.

The FAI have put together a panel to review audio footage arising from that complaint, that monkey chants could be heard from the small band of 200 Israel fans in Hungary.

Uefa informed the FAI after the match that an investigation would not take place as Molumby did not follow protocols in his communication with the match officials.

This is the same Uefa that did not have a match delegate present at yesterday’s Irish press conference, despite the potential for chaos.