FAI Offers Refunds to Season Ticket Holders for Behind Closed Doors Match

The FAI will refund season ticket holders after confirming that Ireland’s 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 straight cash refund for the value of the game, calculated at roughly one fifth of the total season ticket price. The association has also moved to protect fan status: all season ticket holders will receive loyalty points for the match despite being unable to attend.

It is a concession in a campaign that has barely started but is already consumed by everything happening off the pitch.

Upcoming Fixtures

Ireland open their 2026-27 Nations League away to Kosovo in Pristina on 24 September. Under normal circumstances, attention would quickly swing to the back-to-back dates with Israel on 27 September and 1 October. Instead, the conversation has been dominated by where those games are being played and whether they should go ahead at all.

Both fixtures have been moved out of Ireland, relocated to neutral venues in Hungary and Serbia. The second of those, designated as Ireland’s “home” tie, will now be staged without fans.

That decision has unfolded against fierce pressure from the “Stop the Game” campaign, which has called for a boycott of the matches in protest at the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The FAI has held its line. Last month, a motion to proceed with the fixtures passed with a 68% majority, the association stressing what it described as “the profound impact that non-fulfilment of UEFA fixtures would have on Irish football as a whole and its future development.”

So the games go ahead. The stadium in Serbia will be empty of Irish supporters, but the loyalty points will still tick up on their accounts and the refunds will land.

The real cost, sporting and political, will only become clear once the ball is finally rolling.