NYON, Switzerland (AP) — UEFA is investigating possible misconduct by Ireland and Israel around their bad-tempered Nations League match on Sunday.
UEFA announced on Tuesday it appointed an ethics and disciplinary inspector after “the official reports which contained an allegation of an incident in or around the tunnel at halftime.”
The European soccer governing body didn’t immediately offer more details.
The Irish Times previously reported that Ireland head of athletic performance Damien Doyle alleged an Israel player spat at him when the teams were leaving the pitch at halftime of a game that ended 1-1 in neutral Backa Topola, Serbia.
Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said after the match Israel players were trying to intimidate his team from the start.
Ireland beat Israel 3-0 in the first match on Sept. 27 in Debrecen, Hungary, and the Irish again wore black armbands, bowed their heads during the Israel anthem, and refused to shake hands with their opponents to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The Israel players also wore black armbands in memory of the people killed in the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
On Saturday, an Israeli journalist stated during the pre-match press conference that the Irish players called the Israeli players “monkeys” during the first game, leading to an immediate rebuke from Irish communications officer Kieran Crowley, who said it was “a lie” and ended the press conference.
Sunday’s game was supposed to be played in Dublin, but the Football Association of Ireland moved the game to neutral Serbia for “operational reasons” in June following widespread calls for a boycott.
The FAI resisted the boycott calls, arguing the team could be hit with punishing sanctions by UEFA. Ireland is co-hosting the 2028 European Championship with England, Wales and Scotland.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
Israel's Yarden Shua, left, and Ireland's Jimmy Dunne fight for the ball during the UEFA Nations League soccer match between the Republic of Ireland and Israel in Backa Topola, Serbia, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
during the UEFA Nations League soccer match between the Republic of Ireland and Israel in Backa Topola, Serbia, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Francis Halzen won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for his efforts to demystify a rare group of neutrinos, tiny cosmic particles that scientists believe offer clues to how the universe evolved.
“It was a great surprise and I obviously didn’t expect it,” Halzen said, speaking to the committee by phone from Italy, in a call broadcast at the news conference to announce the winner.
Halzen said it was predicted before that he would win the Nobel Prize but the announcement still made him feel “strange.”
“I am working on a proposal, and I hope that this prize will help getting it approved," he said to chuckles from the audience.
The Nobel Committee for Physics also said Halzen’s work was instrumental to the construction of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica.
“Francis Halzen realized that the ice at the South Pole could visualize these neutrino messengers from cosmos,” committee member Eva Olsson said during the news conference. “People joined him in the quest for these neutrino messengers. The messenger is bringing information from cosmos. They opened the door to distant galaxies and tell us about the processes of exploding stars.”
Born in Belgium, the 82-year-old scientist is affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the U.S, which operates the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Efforts by The Associated Press to reach him were not immediately successful.
Neutrinos are tiny cosmic particles with a mind-bogglingly small mass. Yet they are everywhere: they spew from stars like the sun and trillions zip through our bodies every second.
Scientists can’t glimpse the mysterious ghost particles zooming around on their own. Instead, they measure what happens when the tiny particles collide with other bits of matter, producing flashes of light or charged particles.
Halzen helped pull the curtain back on a rare gang of neutrinos that scientists consider messengers from the cosmos, offering clues to how the universe evolved.
“This experiment in the Antarctic is a revolutionary way of understanding the universe that we didn’t have before,” said Michael Moloney, chief executive officer for the American Institute of Physics.
A representative from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory did not immediately return a request for comment. The University of Wisconsin–Madison did not immediately have a comment when reached by the AP.
Ellen Moons, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, announced the award Tuesday in Stockholm. She is the first woman to head the prestigious academy and present the award.
The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether for an individual, a small group of laureates or an organization.
Last year, three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics for research on the strange behavior of subatomic particles called quantum tunneling that enabled the ultrasensitive measurements achieved by MRI machines and laid the groundwork for better cellphones and faster computers.
The announcements of this year's prizes began Monday with the Nobel Prize in medicine being awarded to three scientists whose work led to a tool that uses light to help unravel how the brain works.
This week's awards continue Wednesday with the chemistry prize and literature on Thursday. After Friday’s peace prize is awarded, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Monday.
Dazio reported from Berlin and Ramakrishnan reported from New York. Alexa St. John in Detroit contributed to this report.
AP Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes
A portrait of Francis Halzen is shown on the screen during the announce of the recipient of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 6, 2026. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)
A portrait of Francis Halzen is shown on the screen as Eva Olsson, Ellen Moons, and Mark Pearce announce as the recipient of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 6, 2026. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)
FILE - A Nobel diploma and medal are displayed, Dec. 8, 2020, during a ceremony in New York. (Angela Weiss/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - A bust of Alfred Nobel on display following a press conference to announce the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 3, 2022. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File)
