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Ammon News - The Palestine Football Association (PFA) has officially called on the FIFA Council to suspend Israel's membership

The Palestine Football Association (PFA) submitted its arguments to the independent legal committee created by the FIFA Council to advise on the issues raised in the PFA proposal to FIFA Congress on 11 March 2024 that was remitted to the FIFA Council.

Today’s submission comes at a time of devastating unprecedented reality where since 7 October over 41,000 people, including almost 16,000 children, have been killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza and over 500 killed and over 5,200 injured in the West Bank. Palestinian sport and football scene has been totally decimated, in Gaza, all football infrastructure has been severely damaged or entirely destroyed, football facilities, stadiums, halls, and clubs were targeted and destroyed – 41 in the Gaza Strip and 7 in the West Bank. Gaza’s Yarmouk stadium has been used as a detention center/temporary concentration camp where civilians, including young boys of about 10 years of age, and elderly men were stripped in their underwear and blindfolded. To date, 231 footballers have been killed, including 66 children from the football academy.

Jibril Rajoub, the President of the PFA said, “For 15 years we have consistently raised the same concerns with FIFA, only to see them repeatedly deferred from one Congress to another, from one committee to the next. Now, as our football faces the same existential threat as our Palestinian people, FIFA must make a choice either to passively stand by, or uphold its core values and human rights obligations, and stand firmly on the right side of history.”

While genocidal acts are committeed by the IOF, attention should be made to “public incitement to genocide” committed by Israeli football clubs and the members of the Israeli national football team, supporting the actions of the IOF, as they carry out extermination of the Palestinian people.

Shon Weissman, ex Israeli Air Force member and a player of the Israeli national team and of the Salernitana of the Italian league, who posted “Destroy. Tighten. Crush. To God’s revenge”, "What is the logical reason why 200 tons of bombs have not already been dropped on Gaza”. Tomer Yosefi, from Hapoel Haifa FC in the Israeli league, expressed hope that “this time we will erase Gaza permanently”. Incitement, glorifying and practical support of the IOF by Israeli football clubs go unpunished by the Israeli FA (IFA).

The submission further include IFA’s close cooperation with the government and the IOF in managing their football affairs, violating FIFA principle of neutrality; inclusion of illegal Israeli settlement clubs in IFA leagues contrary to FIFA principle of territoriality; raging racism in some of the Israeli football clubs that goes unpunished; and inability to guarantee safety and security at international football events.

In light of the above and in the spirit of justice, peace, safety and security, the PFA request FIFA council to:

Suspend the IFA as a member of FIFA with immediate effect; ban the IFA and its direct and indirect members from any football-related activity falling under the competence of FIFA with immediate effect; respect the territorial integrity of the PFA and to stop with immediate effect any IFA footballing activity in the West Bank; and refer the overall matter to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee for adjudication and for imposing additional sanctions on the IFA and its direct/indirect members.

Katarina Pijetlovic, Head of the PFA legal team, said that “FIFA can choose either to follow its Statutes and Human Rights Policy commitments or sacrifice its statutory provisions and objectives to continue shielding Israel from liability. Referring this process to committees and task forces would be a futile exercise intended to, yet again, delay the solution on the long-standing issue. Any other decision but immediate suspension would set an extremely dangerous precedent.”

The decision of the FIFA Council is expected on 20 July 2024.