Ireland and Israel to skip shirt swaps and handshakes

Ireland and Israel will not swap shirts after either of their two Nations League matches, according to Evro-Futbol.ru. The Football Association of Ireland has also cancelled all media events planned before the return fixture on 4 October.

Broadcaster RTE will show only the match itself, live, with no studio, pundits or other additional coverage. The Independent reports that Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson and Israel's Ben Shimon will not shake hands either.

The dispute began last week, when Hallgrimsson named his squad and said many players felt uncomfortable about the games. "We are not playing alongside genocide, we are playing against genocide," he said. The Israeli football association replied on social media: "We have made an enormous contribution to the development of humanity, but we have not found a cure for stupidity." According to the reports, Shimon called Hallgrimsson a stupid man.

Both matches will be played on neutral ground: 27 September in Debrecen, Hungary, and 4 October in Bačka Topola. Ireland asked Uefa to keep the sides apart and were refused, as FAI chief David Courell said on 18 September.

Whether the players themselves will shake hands is still open. Defender Dara O'Shea, asked about it, pointed to the fixture ahead of the Israel game. "We already said at the start of the week that we would get together on Friday and discuss it all together. Tomorrow we need to concentrate on the game [against Kosovo]. Once the game is over and Friday comes, we will all get together and talk it through," O'Shea said.