{"id":80768,"date":"2026-09-27T00:16:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T00:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/80768"},"modified":"2026-09-27T00:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T00:16:30","slug":"irelands-knight-says-israel-match-should-not-be-played","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/80768","title":{"rendered":"Ireland’s Knight says Israel match should not be played"},"content":{"rendered":"


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London: Midfielder Jason Knight has become the first Ireland player to oppose playing Israel in the Nations League on Sunday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The match will take place in the Hungarian city of Debrecen despite ongoing calls for Ireland to boycott the fixture.<\/p>\n

No tickets for the game will be made available to Irish supporters after the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) declined its allocation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the game should be going ahead but it is going ahead,\u201d Knight told reporters after Thursday 1-0 loss to Kosovo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have a deeper talk about it and what that means.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m quite experienced. None of us have gone through this scenario before but I\u2019d like to think I\u2019m experienced, thick-skinned and I can get through most things and that is what I will try and do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson said last week that some of his players felt uncomfortable about having to take part in the Israel games.<\/p>\n

Celebrities and activists arrested in mass anti-war protest outside UN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The two nations are due to meet again on October 4 at another neutral venue in Backa Topola, Serbia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll try and focus on the football as much as I can,\u201d added Knight, who plays for Championship club Bristol City.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bigger spotlight obviously and not focused on the football itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very, very unusual and none of us have come into this scenario before so we\u2019re learning on the fly as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, with sympathy for Palestinians often linked to the country\u2019s own history of British rule.<\/p>\n

Dublin formally recognised a Palestinian state in 2024 alongside Spain and Norway, and has repeatedly criticised Israel over the Gaza conflict.<\/p>\n

Israel strongly rejects allegations its conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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London: Midfielder Jason Knight has become the first Ireland player to oppose playing Israel in the Nations League on Sunday. The match will take place in the Hungarian city of Debrecen despite ongoing calls for Ireland to boycott the fixture. No tickets for the game will be made available to Irish supporters after the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) declined…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":16,"label":"Pakistan"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-content\/uploads\/Midfielder-Jason-Knight-1024x555.jpg",1024,555,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"frkhokhar@gmail.com","author_link":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/author\/frkhokhargmail-com"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":16,"name":"Pakistan","slug":"pakistan","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":16,"taxonomy":"category","description":"All about Pakistan","parent":0,"count":6372,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":16,"category_count":6372,"category_description":"All about Pakistan","cat_name":"Pakistan","category_nicename":"pakistan","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80770,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80768\/revisions\/80770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}