Ireland v Israel live updates: UEFA approves Israel request to wear black armbands in memory of October 7

Nations League, Group B3: Republic of Ireland v Israel, TSC Arena, Backa Topola, Serbia, 7.45pmThe venue for this evening’s game: TSC Arena in Backa Topola, Serbia. The pitch at the TSC Arena ahead of the Nations League game between the Republic of Ireland and Israel. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho Gavin Cummiskey’s report on the press conferences from yesterday is well worth reading, just for how it all went down.[ Heimir Hallgrímsson: ‘They can’t have this happening again, just for the players’ welfare’Opens in new window ]Should have some team news in the next while. Until then, there’s plenty of reading about the game and everything surrounding it in the weekend Irish Times. Gavin Cooney’s account of another mad day in the Ireland-Israel circus is here.[ Israeli media call Ireland press conference incident ‘disgraceful’ as fury swirlsOpens in new window ]Tony O’Donoghue had some interesting news to relay from the ground to RTÉ Radio just now. In the wake of yesterday’s pre-match press conference, two Israeli journalists have been banned by Uefa from attending the post-match press conference. The scenes at Heimir Hallgrímsson’s press conference yesterday included one of them invoking the attempted hijacking of a FlyDubai flight during the week and the other accusing an unnamed Irish player of using racist language during the first game. Uefa have clearly taken a dim view of their behaviour and they won’t be allowed into the post-game media rooms. The longest international window (in every sense) limps towards its end. Ireland are in the back of beyonds in Serbia, an out-of-the-way town called Backa Topola, ready for their second game against Israel. The temperature around this one has been raised relentlessly but, as we saw last weekend, at a certain point the whistle goes and the football takes over. We’ll be here to bring you whatever developments there are to report.Already today there have been a couple of extraneous curve balls thrown at this game. Around two o’clock this afternoon, Uefa confirmed that they would been allowing Israel’s request to wear black armbands in memory of the October 7th attacks in 2023. This would appear to be Israel’s way of mirroring last week’s decision by the Ireland team to wear black armbands in memory of all victims in the Gaza conflict. Ireland will be wearing their black armbands again and there won’t be any handshakes or exchanges of pennants.