Fans worldwide are unequivocally challenging FIFA’s continued support for Israel, organizing with unprecedented unity for Palestine. Unlike previous actions, this mobilization is now notably well-coordinated, widespread, and consistent.
Long gone are the days when much of the sports solidarity emerged from the fanbase of clubs like Celtic, Deportivo Palestino, or Arab teams. Gaza is now the undisputed focal point of sports solidarity worldwide. The consequences of this are arguably the most significant in terms of achieving total global awareness of the Israeli genocide in Gaza in particular, but also of the Israeli military occupation and apartheid in the whole of occupied Palestine.
For years, mainstream media did its utmost to ignore the pro-Palestine flags, banners, and chants. When solidarity exceeded tolerable levels, whether in Scotland or Chile, FIFA cracked down with fines and various other punitive measures. Nowadays, however, such tactics are utterly failing. Celtic Park, at times, seems to be one massive pro-Palestine rally, and numerous other clubs are joining in, or expanding their efforts.
In the Paris Saint-Germain UEFA Champions League final against Inter on May 31, it seemed as if the entire PSG supporters’ activities focused on Palestine. The chants of ‘Nous sommes tous les enfants de Gaza’ – “We are all the children of Gaza” echoed everywhere, inside and outside the stadium. As soon as Achraf Hakimi scored the opening goal, a massive flag unfurled in the background: ‘STOP THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA’.
Such unprecedented acts of sports solidarity are powerfully comparable to the sports boycott of apartheid South Africa, which began in the mid-1960s. These boycotts were instrumental in liberating the discourse and transforming the conversation about apartheid from academic halls into the streets.
While the above is true, the two cases are not always comparable. Back then, thanks to the efforts of Global South governments, boycotts largely began at an institutional level and gradually garnered massive popular support.
In the Palestinian case, however, there is a complete moral breakdown on the part of institutions like FIFA, while football fan bases are the ones championing solidarity.
But FIFA is yet to take any measure against Israel despite the blatant racism within Israel’s sports institutions, and also the direct harm it is imposing on Palestinian sports. FIFA’s go-to excuse is the slogan: ‘sports and politics don’t mix.’ But if that is the case, why then, did FIFA seamlessly mix the two following the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Almost immediately after the start of the war, Western countries, purporting to speak on behalf of the international community, began slapping hundreds, and eventually thousands, of sanctions against Russia, which found itself isolated in every arena, including sports. FIFA quickly joined in.
In the Palestinian case, the hypocrisy is limitless, though it began long before the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Every Palestinian effort, often backed by Arab, Muslim, and Global South associations, to hold Israel accountable for its apartheid and military occupation has been met with consistent failure. Every time, the response is the same. The October 2017 critical statement by FIFA is a case in point.
The statement was a response to a final report by the ‘FIFA Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine’, which followed repeated requests by international groups to look into the matter of the Israeli occupation, and the need for FIFA to hold Israel accountable.
The response was decisive: “The current situation (…) has nothing to do with football.” It is of “exceptional complexity and sensitivity”, and cannot be “changed unilaterally by non-government organizations such as FIFA.” The “final status of the West Bank territories” is the concern of competent international public law authorities.
It concluded that “FIFA… must remain neutral with regard to political matters,” adding that the association will “refrain from imposing any sanctions” on Israel and that “the matter is declared closed.”
Since then, so much has changed. For example, in July 2018, Israel declared itself a country for Jews only, thus the Nation State Law. It also passed a law in July 2020 that allows for the annexation of the occupied West Bank. Since October 7, 2023, it launched a genocide against Gaza.
The accusatory language this time is not that of Palestinians and their allies. It is the language of international institutions, which are actively investigating Israel’s horrific violations in Gaza.
Though FIFA may still claim that the matter is too ‘complex’ and ‘sensitive’, how can it ignore that over 700 Palestinian athletes have been killed, and over 270 sports facilities have been destroyed in the first 14 months of the war?
Here, something must be said about the tenacity of the Palestinian, a quality that does not hinge on FIFA’s action or inaction. The Palestine National Football team continues to move from strength to strength and, even more impressively, Palestinian children in Gaza, somehow, manage to create spaces, even among the ruins of their cities, to kick a ball, thus stealing a moment of joy from the horrors of genocide.
Though FIFA continues to fail Palestine, sports fans refuse to be part of this moral travesty. And ultimately, it will be the tenacity of the Palestinians and the growing solidarity with their just cause that will eventually force FIFA to take action, not only for the sake of Palestine, or even the future of the sport, but for FIFA’s own relevance.
