Ireland v Israel: Day of infamy exposes serious lack of leadership in FAI

Not even the most pessimistic forecasts of the reality of playing Israel could have foreseen a day as abject and rancorous as this.

It began at 9.56am, when the FAI press officer sent a WhatsApp message to an Irish journalist to say Ireland’s press conference, due to start in 19 minutes, would be postponed by around two hours until after their 11am training session. Uefa’s match delegate learned about the delay at the same time as the media. At 10.40am, the Israel FA press officer told us that the Irish training session would be delayed, as he had been told that the Irish team had not yet left the team hotel.