FIFA Council meets this Thursday with requests to act against Israel

Madrid.- The FIFA Council meets this Thursday with the recent request from the Palestinian Federation (PFA) to take urgent action against Israel, "in the face of genocide and ongoing occupation", a request also made today by Amnesty International (AI) and previously by experts from the UN. Although it is not explicitly on the agenda, the matter marks the meeting of the 37 members of the Council in Zurich, which also coincides with the announcement of a peace plan for the Middle East presented two days ago by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and awaiting the Palestinian response to it.

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Palestine's latest call to FIFA, also extended to UEFA, regarding Israel's participation in its qualification for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, claimed that football cannot remain "neutral in the face of genocide and ongoing occupation". "Since FIFA's constitutional commitments and its Human Rights Policy include a positive obligation to respect and protect internationally recognized human rights; since we are witnessing the most serious violations of those human rights in our lives and; given the complicity of the Football Association of Israel, its clubs, fans and players, there is no justified reason to exempt the Football Association of Israel from responsibility," wrote the president of the Palestinian Federation, Gen Jibril Rajoub, in a letter sent to FIFA Council members on September 24th. Your missive arrived a day after eight UN experts, including the rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, called on FIFA and UEFA to suspend the Israeli national team from international competitions, as the Turkish Federation has also requested. Last night, the Turkish Galatasaray fans displayed banners at the Champions League match against Liverpool with messages such as "Free Palestine", "Free Gaza and living babies" and "If Jerusalem is not free, the world is captive".

A conflict at the FIFA table for over a decade

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has been on FIFA's table for over a decade, when Gianni Infantino was not yet its president, and for a year specifically in the hands of the Disciplinary and Governance, Audit and Compliance commissions. In 2013, the Palestinian Federation denounced the presence of Israeli league clubs based in settlements in the Palestinian territory, and two years later, the 2015 Congress, in the final stretch of the previous presidency of Joseph Blatter, created a monitoring committee. This committee made recommendations to the Israeli Federation (IFA) to exclude from its leagues the clubs based in those settlements. Nine years later, and following the Hamas attacks in Israel, Palestine again requested in May 2024 at the Bangkok Congress the application of the Statutes and the immediate expulsion of said clubs, a request forwarded to the FIFA Council. On October 3rd of last year, this Council, following the recommendations of the independent legal analysis commissioned by the organization, asked the FIFA Disciplinary Committee to investigate the alleged discriminatory grievance raised by the Palestinian Federation. It also delegated to the Governance, Audit and Compliance Commission to investigate the participation in competitions of Israeli teams allegedly located in the territory of Palestine and advise the Council on the matter.

Five months ago, at the last FIFA Congress on May 15 in Paraguay, Palestine requested the organization to provide information on both investigations so that the Council could make a decision.

"The delay in FIFA's position will be considered as support for these illegal settlements, which are being built on Palestinian football fields that are being destroyed, for part of this football community that has been brutally murdered," denounced Palestinian representative Susan Shalabi. The response from the FIFA general secretariat was that both committees, which are independent according to the statutes, were still working on "a complex issue" and that the composition of their members had been renewed at that same Congress.

The Olympic Truce, the Difference with the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Unlike what happened in February 2022 with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, FIFA has no recommendation from the IOC for Israeli teams not to participate in its competitions. In fact, the IOC assured a few days ago that Israel respects the Olympic Charter, a kind of constitution that governs the organization. According to this, the Olympic truce covers from the seventh day before the opening of the Games until the seventh after their closing. Russia violated the truce in 2022. It began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, four days after the closing of the Beijing Winter Games, held from February 4 to 20 of that year. The IOC then recommended to federations and competition organizers not to invite or allow the participation of Russian or Belarusian athletes or officials. A year later, it softened the measure by admitting these athletes under a neutral flag and with conditions such as "not having actively supported the war in Ukraine". FIFA and UEFA did suspend the Russian national teams and clubs in February 2022, a suspension that remains in effect.