Palestine FA demands 'Israel' be barred from FIFA
3 Min Read
This comes as the Israeli occupation entity's football association claimed last month it had "always followed FIFA regulations and always will."
-
The FIFA logo is seen at a press event in Istanbul, Türkey on August 15, 2022. (AFP)
The Palestine Football Association (PFA) has called for the exclusion of the Israel Football Association (IFA) from FIFA due to the occupation's war on Gaza and many humanitarian rights violations, The Independent UK reported.
The PFA has previously called on FIFA to sanction the Israeli teams over the ongoing war on Gaza, citing that 6 member nations had endorsed the notion. In February, a 12-nation group of football associations in the Middle East also called on FIFA and the UEFA to ban "Israel", Sky News reported, referring to the letter sent to the federation.
Last month, the Israeli occupation entity's football association responded to the petition by claiming it had "always followed FIFA regulations and always will."
The statement to the international football governing body addressed several infractions of international law and FIFA regulations during its 74th conference in Bangkok next month.
The PFA's proposal echoed a similar one by Iran's football federation, which declared that it requested FIFA to suspend "Israel's" football federation in response to the war on Gaza.
The PFA further claimed that Israeli football clubs openly exclude Arabs from entering their ranks and that brutal violence is considered only a disciplinary infraction "to be handled by the biased Israel Football Association internal dispute resolution mechanism."
The submission also included social media posts from Israeli football executives and clubs, such as the CEO of the Israeli Professional Football Leagues' LinkedIn post and FC Maccabi Netanya's Facebook post, in which they highly support the genocide in Gaza.
Furthermore, the PFA noted that many of the players are members of the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) and that FIFA continues to incorporate at least "five illegal settlement clubs located in the territory of the PFA into its national league."
The PFA report went on to highlight the damage and issues to Gaza's football infrastructure caused by Israeli strikes.
“All the football infrastructure in Gaza has been either destroyed or seriously damaged, including the historic stadium of Al-Yarmuk, which was turned by the Israeli occupation into a concentration camp, as documented by more than one international organization. Israeli bulldozers dug up the pitch just to destroy it.”
The Jenin Club, Jenin camp club, and Nurshams Club in the West Bank were also damaged by the IOF during their raids on the refugee camps, and the occupation mostly rejects licenses to build sporting complexes, the PFA continued.
In addition, the PFA noted the obvious and ongoing genocide which has killed over 33, 899 Palestinians and injured 76,664, citing a previous UNICEF description of the onslaught as a "war on children."
