International law and Human Rights Specialists call for Israel’s ban from football activities
A legal review conducted by international experts in law and human rights declared that due to the breakthrough of FIFA’s statute, Israel should be banned from football-related activities in the war with Gaza.
May saw the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) pass a resolution to suspend Israel, and while FIFA looked into this request, it commissioned a legal review. FIFA has assured us it will work on the problem during the extraordinary council meeting scheduled for July this year.
The Asian Football Confederation for the action against Israel has said Jibril al Rajoub PFA, that FIFA can not remain neutral to the violations and the genocide going on in Palestine.
The legal analysis of the case was prepared by an attorney, Max du Plessis, who took part in the South Africa v. Israel case of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, and Sarah Pudifin-Jones. Eko, which is a Non-Government Organization (NGO) that focuses on social justice issues, contacted them.
“Beyond reasonable doubt, Israeli conduct in Palestine and counterparts’ actions yield negative impacts, which negates FIFA ideals presently and in the future,” the report stated.
The report was the violation of Palestinian internationally acknowledged human rights by Israel as per Article 3 of FIFA statutes. It also pointed out racism and discrimination against Palestinians as an ethnic group, people originating from Palestine, and their place of birth in violation of Article 4(1). In addition, it said that Israeli conduct erases FIFA’s humanitarian goals outlined in Article 5 of the FIFA charter. 1(b). Israeli conduct does deserve condemnation, as was the position of FIFA about comparable blatant negation of the charter and internationally recognized human rights.
In the current Palestinian proposal, the IFAi has been accused of being complicit in the infringement of international law by the Israeli Government and racism regarding the Arab players. To these accusations, the IFA has not taken kindly.
Eko launched a petition demanding that FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, and other sporting federations exclude Israel from international sports, and 380 thousand people signed it.
Earlier, the PFA used to take motions to suspend Israel, but FIFA failed to take any action. In 2017, it was stated that the matter was shut down and could not be discussed again if the legal or actual scenario changed.
The report used the facts to predict that contesting these issues has produced “a new legal structure that calls for FIFA intervention. ”
Al Rajoub referred to such examples at the FIFA Congress, and the evaluation showed that the suspension of Israel would meet past actions of FIFA to suspend or expel the member association that deviates from the organization’s mission.
The FASA was expelled in 1961 because of the ‘apartheid policy in South Africa’, while the Yugoslavian team was expelled in 1992 due to the United Nations sanctions resulting from ‘Serb dominated government aggression in the Balkans’.
Most recently, in the year 2022, FIFA and UEFA especially moved with speed to expel Russian teams from competitions, given their aggression on Ukraine.
The demand for FIFA to act against Israel is rising as the conflicts remain high, and activists are demanding that the FIFA act in compliance with the statute and human rights.
