Watch: FAI called on to resign as they appear before Oireachtas

The FAI board appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Sport this morning.

Earler in the week, the board and CEO of the FAI were called on to resign over its "shambolic, arrogant, and incompetent" according to People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger.

The Republic of Ireland beat Israel at the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen, Hungary, on Sunday, in the first of two highly contentious games between the sides.

They are to play again this Sunday in Backa Topola, Serbia.

Coppinger is now calling for that game to be boycotted.

"Do you agree that the FAI handling was shambolic, arrogant, and incompetent, and the CEO and the board should resign for their handling of it," she asked Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Leaders’ Questions.

"The team was sent into a cauldron of racial abuse, monkey chants for one of the players, an IDF chant. A video circulated of Yosef Hadad, who was actually brought into the Oireachtas by Minister (Jennifer Carroll) McNeil, apparently stating that we (Israel) may lose the football, but the IDF always wins.

"Now, Taoiseach, I want to ask you about the government’s role because you got up and you made a speech at the UN where you said the situation in Gaza remains an affront to all that is decent, and let it not be said we did not act, and then two days later, you facilitated a sportswash in a game against Israel."

After the Dail debate, members of the FAI board appeared in front of an Oireachtas committee in which they were roundly criticised once more.

Sinn Fein's Joanna Byrne got into a heated exchange with Paul Cooke, President of the FAI saying: "You can make all the shrugs and smirks you want over there, Paul Cook. But now is the time to answer to the people who are asking you these questions here today. Where was your leadership in all of this?"

Cooke denied he was smirking, adding: "68% of our members who represent football in Ireland, who represent grassroots clubs, League of Ireland clubs, FAI schools, they voted to endorse and support the decision of our board to play the game. That is the football community speaking. That is the key democracy at work here.

"We seem to lose sight of the fact that we're a membership organisation, and we reflect the will of our members."

In the same committee, Social Democrat TD and former Bohemian's player Daniel Ennis said that because eight players didn't want to play the international fixture: "That is detrimental to the state of the game,"

FAI CEO David Courell defended the FAI's decision.

"The players agreed by consensus, in a meeting they called themselves, to play the game," he says. The decision by one player to change his mind meant a "rethink"," he said.

"Regardless, the decision was made by the FAI," says Courell, outling that a majority of players still wanted to maintain the fixture.