December 15 – Never one to miss out on a photo opportunity to boost his popularity, Gianni Infantino attended the official signing on Monday of a ground-breaking agreement between the football associations of the UAE and Israel.
The president of the UAE FA, Rached bin Hamid al-Naïmi, and his Israeli counterpart, Oren Hasson, signed the agreement before launching white doves as a sign of peace.
“This is a historic day for football but also for society, because we move from words to actions, from agreements to reality,” said Infantino during the official ceremony, which took place in Dubai and came three months after the US-brokered announcement of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Bahrain, Israel and the UAE.
“I’m very proud to be here today to witness this memorandum of understanding. It is crucial for the future because it shows that football is uniting, football is bringing people together.
“I’m expecting a lot from this agreement. I said it to the two presidents, they can count on the support from FIFA to organise events, to organise training opportunities, to organise actions to bring Israel and UAE but also the whole region closer together with football.”
“Football is a messenger of peace, tolerance, coexistence. That is why we are here,” said al-Naïmi while Hasson added: “Today, I think everyone wins.”
The agreement covers the holding of friendly matches at national and club level and the organisation of joint technical workshops.
But the elephant in the room, of course, were the Palestinians who are outraged at the accord. They have long taken the view that Infantino is siding with Israel, rather than taking a neutral stance.
In particular, the Palestinians accuse FIFA of double standards not least in refusing to sanction Israel over its clubs being located in illegal settlements in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by the Israelis.
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