October 3 – On the eve of its Council meeting today, FIFA president Gianni Infantino and his fellow decision makers received yet another demand from Human Rights Watch to “fulfil” the organisation’s responsibilities and stop Israeli clubs organising fixtures in the West Bank, an issue that constantly been kicked down the road by world football’s governing body.
Headed ‘Israeli Settlements and the Israel Football Association’, a letter to Infantino, general secretary Mattias Graftström, Legal Affairs and Compliance Director Emilio Garcia and every Council member urged them to ban Israeli clubs “operating illegally in occupied Palestinian territory” from “organizing football activities in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.”
“IFA-member football clubs are based on and use land that Israeli authorities unlawfully took from and rendered off-limits to Palestinians, who may not enter settlements unless they have special permits to work as day-labourers, much less participate in football activities,” Human Rights Watch said.
“Palestinian residents of the West Bank cannot access the pitches on which the games take place, which are reserved for Israeli Jews who have been unlawfully transferred into the occupied West Bank.”
“After taking no meaningful action stop clubs from operating in settlements for more than a decade, the FIFA Council should not prolong the harms caused to Palestinians’ human rights and to football by deferring the issue yet again for further study by another internal committee.”
“We call on the Council to take action to end FIFA’s de facto sponsorship of football in Israeli settlements, which are inseparable from serious human rights abuses.”
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