As war rages in Gaza, Palestine resumes its football protest
The Palestinian Football Association submitted a "protest note" to UEFA, lobbying against illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as well as Israel's growing influence in European football.
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On the eve of the UEFA Congress last week—and amid the ongoing bombardment of Gaza following the collapse of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas—the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) lobbied the governing body for European football against the longstanding problem of Israeli settlement clubs in the West Bank.
The letter, addressed to UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin and General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis, emphasized that football clubs based in illegal settlements are not recognized as part of Israel under multiple United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, the International Court of Justice, and international law.
The PFA also questioned the eligibility of Israel Football Association (IFA) President Moshe Zuares in UEFA’s Executive Committee elections. The letter noted that Zuares visited an Israeli Air Force base during the current war in Gaza, where he reportedly told military personnel, “Together, we will win.”
Zuares was elected to the UEFA committee this week, receiving 31 votes from the 55 national federations.
The letter marked the latest attempt by the PFA to lobby against Israel’s participation in world football. During the FIFA Congress in Bangkok, Thailand last year, the organization called for sanctions against the IFA over the war in Gaza. And despite several federations and NGOs filing submissions and independent legal analysis to FIFA in support of the PFA’s bid, football’s governing body kept stalling and postponing the decision.
Initially, FIFA vowed to resolve the issue during an extraordinary council meeting in July 2024, only to postpone the decision to the August 31 council session. FIFA then pushed the decision back again to its October meeting, where it was once again postponed to allow for “due diligence,” according to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Meanwhile, as the football world continues to cement its ties to Israel, hundreds of thousands of Gazans were forced to flee this week in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah—a major escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January 2025.
"I want to die. Let them kill us and free us from this life,” Umm Aaed Bardaa told Reuters as she fled her home. “We’re not living, we’re dead."
The entire protest note can be read below:
Dear Mr. Čeferin and Mr Theodoridis,
We hereby submit a protest note and call for action on two pressing matters affecting UEFA’s fundamental provisions: they concern the principle of territorial integrity and the standards applied by the electoral committee in approving the candidacies for the UEFA Executive Committee.
As you are aware, there are six to nine Israeli clubs located in the territory of the West Bank that Israel FA incorporates into its leagues. They participate in the Israeli leagues and host Israeli leagues matches on the territory of the West Bank. Being incorporated into Israeli FA structures, they are also a part of the UEFA’s European football pyramid.
Art 5(1) of the UEFA Statutes (2024) provides that
Membership of UEFA is open to national football associations situated in the continent of Europe, based in a country which is recognised as an independent state by the majority of members of the United Nations, and which are responsible for the organisation and implementation of football-related matters in the territory of their country.
The United Nations (UN) does not recognise countries as “independent states” in abstract – it recognizes them within clearly delineated territories. Therefore, when UEFA Congress accepted the Israel FA as its member under Art 6 UEFA Statutes, it granted them a right to organise football “in the territory of their country” within a territory recognised by the UN as belonging to that country. Under the dozens of the UN laws (such as UN SC Resolution 2334, 242, 338, 1850 and others) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinions, the territory of Israel explicitly excludes the West Bank, Gaza, and the East Jerusalem. Instead, the cited UN law is clear that these regions belong to and compose the State of Palestine in their entirety – a country recognised as independent state by 146 UN Members States.
It is not just that these territories do not belong to the country of Israel in international law – they also do not belong to Israel FA under European or global football regulations. Israel FA never received an authorisation from UEFA, Palestine FA, AFC and FIFA, all of which are required under Art 65 of the FIFA Statutes to incorporate clubs located on the Palestinian territory into Israeli leagues. "The Russian football federation cannot organize matches in Crimea without the agreement of UEFA and Ukraine," said Mr Infantino, UEFA General Secretary at the time. He was referring to UEFA’s decision to ban Crimean clubs from competing in Russian Football Union leagues in 2014, citing a violation of territorial integrity provisions and emphasizing that the region is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.
Furthermore, when two associations claim the jurisdiction over same territory, Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirms which association has jurisdiction by referring to international law, particularly by determining which country the disputed territory belongs to under the relevant UN resolutions. For example, in CAS 2023/A/10093 ROC v. IOC, the CAS Panel relied on a non-binding UN GA Resolution to determine the issue of limits of a country because, inter alia, the resolution was voted for by “overwhelming majority” of the UN members (143 members) and represented as “overwhelming evidence” of what international community recognizes as limits of the territory. Likewise, the binding and non-binding UN resolutions that recognize the precise territorial limits of both Palestine and Israel were voted by overwhelming majority in the UN General Assembly or were unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council.
Facts, international law, lex sportiva as set out by CAS, and the territorial integrity principle in UEFA statutes are clear. The only matter that remains unclear is why UEFA has allowed Israel FA to violate its territorial integrity rules and illegally use the land of expelled Palestinian families to host football matches of the occupying apartheid regime illegally annexing the territory of West Banks? On 19 July 2024, the ICJ verified the existence of all of these elements of Israeli regime, yet the clubs are still a part of UEFA structures.
Keeping the illegal settlement clubs within its structures and turning a blind eye to the actions of Israel FA contributes to both human rights abuses and illegal occupation. This was emphasised by Amnesty International and the United Nations’ top human rights experts who urged FIFA to follow international law and immediately bar the Israel FA from organizing football activities in illegal Israeli settlements. At the same time, FIFA was asked by Human Rights Watch “to take action to end [its] de facto sponsorship of football in Israeli settlements, which are inseparable from serious human rights abuses.” The same applies to UEFA and ultimately, we must ask what other unambiguous legal and regulatory provisions need to exist, who else needs to confirm the serious violation of human rights by UEFA’s inaction, and what else needs to happen for UEFA to apply its Statutes?
The Chairman of the Israel FA, Mr Moshe Zuares, has now submitted his candidacy for the UEFA Executive Committee. As an association supportive of Israeli regime, Israel FA recently visited Air Force, a military base that engages in extermination campaign of civilians in Gaza, saying “together, we will win”. We therefore express our profound disappointment that Mr Zuares was able to pass the eligibility check by the UEFA’s electoral committee under Art 4bis of the Regulations Implementing UEFA Statutes and that his candidacy was accepted. His appointment would further contribute towards UEFA’s support for illegal settlement expansion, normalising the actions of the Israel FA, and devaluing the core principles of our sport.
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