FAI to Refund Ireland Season Ticket Holders for Israel Fixture

The FAI will refund Ireland season ticket holders after confirming that the upcoming home Nations League fixture against Israel will be played behind closed doors in Serbia.

Supporters who bought season tickets are being offered either an account credit or a cash refund equivalent to one fifth of the total season ticket price, reflecting the value of the single home game they will now miss. Loyalty points will still be awarded to all season ticket holders as if they had attended, an attempt to soften the blow for fans locked out of one of the campaign’s most politically charged fixtures.

Ireland open their 2026-27 Nations League campaign away to Kosovo in Pristina on 24 September, but that footballing storyline has been pushed into the background. The real noise surrounds the back-to-back games against Israel on 27 September and 1 October, both moved out of Dublin and switched to neutral venues in Hungary and Serbia.

The decision has dropped the FAI into the centre of a fierce debate. The association has come under sustained pressure from the ‘Stop the Game’ campaign, which has called for a boycott of the Israel fixtures in protest at the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The FAI has stood its ground. At a meeting last month, a motion to proceed with the games passed with a 68% majority. The association pointed to “the profound impact that non-fulfilment of UEFA fixtures would have on Irish football as a whole and its future development,” a line that underlines how heavily European obligations weighed on the final call.

So Ireland will play on, in empty stands far from home, with the Nations League table on one side and a wider moral argument raging on the other.