On the sleeve of every player and match official during the Round of 32 in the ongoing World Cup, as well as during the Final, is the slogan, ‘Football Unites the World’. FIFA saying this is ironic, if not downright cruel and twisted.
Ask Palestine. The team finished second in the second round of the Asian qualifiers, behind Australia, thus qualifying for the third round for the first time in their history. Here, they were drawn in a tough group with South Korea, Jordan, Iraq, Oman and Kuwait. They played their hearts out, drawing twice against the much stronger South Korea, and would have qualified for the next round, had it not been for a penalty awarded to Oman in stoppage time during Palestine’s final match. When Oman converted, what should have been a win became a draw, and Palestine was eliminated, just one point short of progressing.
Palestine’s World Cup qualifying campaign faced extraordinary odds. In the qualifying tournaments, each team plays a ‘home’ and an ‘away’ match. Palestine has not been able to play ‘home’ matches in either the West Bank or Gaza since October 2023. These matches are played in a neutral venue. Thus, while their opponents enjoy the ‘home’ advantage, Palestine don’t. Palestinian players routinely face harassment and travel restrictions from Israeli authorities. Even getting the whole team together for training is an achievement. Several players and staff have had family members or friends killed during the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
And then there’s the destruction of infrastructure. Gaza had around 40 football clubs affiliated with the Palestine Football Association (PFA) before the start of the genocide in October 2023. Gaza had several football facilities, including four stadiums: Palestine Stadium, Yarmouk Stadium, Khan Younis Stadium, Rafah Municipal Stadium. Today, nothing remains. All stadiums have been destroyed. All football facilities are in ruins. There is no functioning football club.
And what of the players? In early June this year, Israel abducted two women football players, Rand al-Halawani (released after a few days) and Natali Abu Dayyeh.
At least they are alive. In an official letter to FIFA, the PFA said that 99 footballers (among some 400 athletes) had been killed by Israel in Gaza between October 2023 and March 2024. That’s two athletes killed every day, and a footballer killed every second day. There are also numerous cases of athletes being ‘knee-capped’ – that is, shot in the knee or lower limbs – effectively terminating their playing careers. This is part of the deliberate Israeli effort to wipe out Palestinian social life, to obliterate anything that represents Palestinian culture and national pride.
This, by itself, should be enough to get the Israel Football Association sanctioned and expelled by FIFA. But there’s more.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, built on land stolen from Palestinians, are illegal by international law. All activity on settlements, whether economic, social, cultural, or sporting, is also illegal. Several countries in the world explicitly prohibit conducting business with illegal settlement-based enterprises.
There are about half a dozen football clubs recognized by IFA operating from illegal settlements. These clubs play in Israeli leagues, and players move from illegal settlement-based clubs to other Israeli clubs, and vice-versa, all the time.
Not only is this in contravention of international law, it also explicitly violates FIFA’s own charter, which states, ‘Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without that association’s approval.’
Then there is the extreme Zionism of some Israeli clubs. The best-known is Beitar Jerusalem FC. Since its founding in 1936, it has been closely identified with Israel’s extreme right wing. Benjamin Netanyahu is a long-time Beitar supporter. The club has fan groups of the extreme right. The most notorious of these is La Familia, founded in 2005. This group of football ultras is known for its wanton violence and genocidal chants, including ‘Death to Arabs’.
Among football hooligans, Israeli fans occupy pride of place. For example, in November 2024, fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv FC went on a rampage in Amsterdam, tearing down Palestinian flags from buildings; chanting racist slogans, including ‘Death to Arabs’; indulging in acts of wanton violence; and chanting songs celebrating the Gaza genocide, including one that means ‘There are no schools in Gaza because all the children are dead’.
In typical Israeli playbook style, all this was justified with the claim that it was Maccabi fans who were first subjected to antisemitic slurs and violence. Subsequent investigations complicated the picture. While it is true that some Maccabi supporters faced public anger against the genocide in Gaza (but not antisemitism), there is no doubt that Maccabi supporters indulged in acts of hooliganism and racist provocations both before and after the match (in which Maccabi was trounced by the Dutch club Ajax 5–0), followed by retaliatory violence against some Israeli supporters.
The PFA is right in petitioning FIFA to sanction and expel IFA, of course, but for us to expect action under the present FIFA leadership would be naïve. FIFA president Gianni Infantino is Donald Trump’s poodle. Not only has FIFA not used its clout to force some degree of decency from the US in the conduct of the present World Cup, Infantino presented Trump with a completely made up ‘FIFA Peace Prize’ when Trump didn’t get his coveted Nobel. He has appeared in public wearing a red, MAGA-style hat. He pledged FIFA’s support to the ‘Board of Peace’ constituted by Trump to oversee a post-genocide plan in Gaza. During the FIFA Congress in Vancouver in April 2026, he attempted to get PFA president Jibril Rajoub to shake hands on stage with the vice president of IFA, Basim Sheikh Suliman. Rajoub refused.
FIFA’s collusion with Israel and the US is in contrast with its own stand against South Africa under apartheid. FIFA suspended South Africa in 1961 and expelled it in 1976. Today, despite a mountain of evidence against Israel, FIFA refuses to even sanction IFA, let alone suspend or expel it. Or take Russia, which was banned by FIFA just four days after its conflict with Ukraine began, in February 2022.
This, like much else, reflects geopolitical realities of the respective times. The 1960s and 70s were a time of decolonization and independence in Asia, Africa and Latin America, often inspired by socialism and Marxism; today is a time of naked racism and imperialism by the white ruling elites of the West.
When children in Gaza play football on the beach in the midst of the genocide, they are not merely escaping a terrible reality. They are also fighting to be treated with decency, dignity and self-respect. They are asserting humanity.
[This is a slightly amended version of an article that appeared on leftviews.in.]
Courtesy: Sudhanva Deshpande