March 23 – Palestinian and Israeli football officials were involved in “heated” talks on Wednesday as Tokyo Sexwale (pictured centre), FIFA’s main Middle East negotiator, finally presented his long awaited draft report on the dispute over Israeli clubs based in the occupied territories and other festering issues in the region.
Sexwale’s committee met at FIFA headquarters along with the president of the Israeli Football Federation, Ofer Eini (pictured right), and his Palestinian counterpart Jibril Rajoub (pictured left) to try and forge a long-lasting agreement.
The Palestinians argue that the presence of six Israeli clubs playing on land containing settlements is in breach of FIFA statutes. Israel counters that this is inapplicable since the Palestinians do not have permanent borders. “The meeting was stormy, even virulent,” a source close to the talks told AFP.
FIFA said in a statement that Sexwale’s monitoring committee presented a “draft final report containing specific recommendations” without providing any detail, adding that the various parties will “come back” to him before he submits his final report to the FIFA Congress in May in Bahrain.
The source told AFP that Sexwale presented three possible options – to retain the status quo “with the legal risks arising therefrom”; allow the Israeli federation six months “to rectify the situation of the six clubs in question”; or to request new negotiations between the two sides.
All of these fail to seriously take the debate forward and are unlikely to satisfy the Palestinians who have re-iterated that they will not agree to any further compromises if FIFA continues to drag its feet. Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Rajoub told Al Jazeera: “Now, we have the last meeting and we have to explain our position. If they are going to solve this issue – OK. If not, we have no other choice: we will go to the congress next May in Bahrain and ask for the imposition of sanctions against the Israeli federation.”
Susan Shalabi, a Palestinian member of the monitoring committee and Palestine Football Association vice chairwoman, told the Jerusalem Post that one last-ditch final meeting would be held in early May before the FIFA Congress where the committee’s mandate is set to expire.
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