Amnesty International calls on FIFA and UEFA to ban Israel over West Bank settlement football teams

FIFA and UEFA have been urged to suspend Israel from international football by a human rights charity.

Amnesty International says the presence of six teams from settlements in the West Bank in Israeli leagues violates international law and FIFA’s own rules.

The charity’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said: “As Israel’s national football team gears up for World Cup qualifiers against Norway and Italy, Israel continues to perpetrate genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“Over 800 athletes, players and sports officials are among the more than 65,000 people Israeli forces have killed in a deliberate campaign of wholesale devastation, forced displacement and starvation of civilians.

“At the same time, Israel is brutally expanding its illegal settlements and legitimising illegal outposts in the West Bank as part of its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory.

“It is nothing short of a disgrace that the Israeli Football Association is still allowing clubs from these settlements to keep playing in its leagues, after multiple warnings for more than a decade.

“Football is not played in a vacuum. FIFA and UEFA must accept their responsibilities under international law and stop letting Israeli national teams and club sides participate in international or European football until the Israeli Football Association suspends all clubs from illegal settlements.”

Sources within UEFA member associations indicated last week there was a prospect of an extraordinary meeting of UEFA’s executive committee to discuss the possibility of suspending Israel in relation to its attacks on Gaza.

However, no meeting has been scheduled and the prospect of a peace deal brokered by the United States has since been raised.

The FIFA Council is meeting on Thursday, but its vice-president Victor Montagliani said on Wednesday a decision on Israel was a matter for UEFA, as one of the European confederation’s member associations.

Israeli FA president Moshe Zuares, speaking to Norwegian network TV2 last week, said suspending his country “won’t stop a war or what’s happening”.

“I don’t think stopping football will help in any way,” he said.

“I didn’t see that the war between Russia and Ukraine ended after Russia was banned? I don’t see that it solved any problem.”