Gavin Cooney: Long week ahead as Ireland brace for emotional fan reaction at Aviva Stadium

The Irish players were given Monday off after their return from Hungary, a brief respite at the outset of what may be one of the longest weeks in Irish football history. It is scheduled to end with another Sunday night game against Israel, this time in Backa Topola, Serbia. FAI president Paul Cooke says it is the association’s intention to play the game, although a visibly emotional Heimir Hallgrímsson admitted after Sunday’s game in Hungary that he is working on a minute-to-minute basis. The Ireland manager says conversations about the second Israel game may wait until after Thursday’s home match against Austria at the Aviva Stadium. While this could lead to another set of eleventh-hour talks, it may be out of necessity given the obvious potential of Thursday’s game to affect the players. It is therefore difficult to foresee any concrete standing on the second Israel game before the players have experienced whatever Thursday night brings. Protests against the FAI were already planned over their decision not to boycott the Israel games, but now these threaten to target the Irish players. READ MOREHallgrímsson admitted he is worried about the atmosphere on Thursday night, and there are some queasy concerns at the FAI that the protests may escalate to the point where the game is under threat. It has been designated as a Euro 2028 test event and so Uefa are in town to observe. Among the changes to be made will be the blocking off of the first two rows of seats in the three stands housing Irish fans. This is apparently to allow the installing of larger LED advertising boards at the Euros, but the timing is clearly convenient. With the players now refusing to speak to the media at all, Hallgrímsson will face his latest round of questions at the game’s pre-match press conference on Wednesday. Events of recent days have taken an emotional toll on Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrímsson. Photograph: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images A couple of hours later, an FAI delegation including Cooke, CEO David Courell, director of football John Martin and chairman Tony Keohane will troop into Government Buildings for an appearance before an Oireachtas Committee. It is officially a follow-on meeting from a previous appearance about safeguarding, but it has been given an extremely broad agenda, covering matters relating to “safeguarding, governance, and football”. Courell wrote to the committee a month ago to ask for any likely matters on which the committee would focus, noting the agenda “arguably covers all aspects of what we do”. Events have conspired to deliver Courell the committee’s likely matter for focus. The chief executive will read the FAI’s opening statement to the committee on Wednesday, in which he will admit that there’s going to be one story everyone wants to talk about, describing the decision to play Israel as “a difficult institutional decision made in the interests of Irish football as a whole”. The FAI’s problem is that it is very difficult to paint the chaos and acrimony of the last few days as being in the best interests of Irish football. Cooke has set a pugnacious tone in advance, standing by the FAI’s handling of the situation while rounding on the media.There is no doubt that the FAI has been left in an extremely difficult position by Uefa in all of this, and Cooke is adamant that the case for playing the games has not been given sufficient coverage. One of the frustrations on all sides of the argument here is the threat of unknown sanctions, on which the FAI are not willing to take a gamble. It is a cautious but fair stance to take, but persistent contradictions give weight to allegations of scaremongering. FAI president Paul Cooke is interviewed by Tony O'Donoghue of RTÉ after Ireland's UEFA Nations League match against Israel in Debrecen, Hungary. Photograph: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images Hallgrímsson, for instance, speculated as recently as Sunday night that Ireland might lose Euro 2028 co-hosting rights were they to boycott, even though Courell categorically ruled out that prospect nine days earlier.The FAI played the games based on the potential costs of a boycott. Now, though, they are dealing with the costs of playing the games – which is to have had everything cascade upon the players. Cooke was clear with the media in Hungary on Sunday night that the decision to play the game rested solely on the players’ vote to do so. He said he did not express his opinion to the players on whether to play the game, adding that at no point did he believe the game should not go ahead. Courell is understood to have been less firmly of the opinion that the game should be played, but he nonetheless appeared at a press conference to read the statement that confirmed the game would be played. The committee may try to probe the exact circumstances around the votes and the decision to fulfil the fixture, along with how Gavin Bazunu was treated following his decision to withdraw. Hallgrímsson’s comments about Bazunu after the match on Sunday were of a notably more empathetic note than the messaging about him from the Irish camp a day earlier. In mitigation, players were certainly affected by the stress of the environment, as the player who had stridently confronted Bazunu at the height of the tension subsequently apologised.One thing is presumably guaranteed: Wednesday’s meeting will bring some political grandstanding and another bruising few hours for the FAI.