Israel's team lineup is full of soldier-footballers. FIFA's failure to ban it makes it complicit in genocide

Every Israeli football player is a soldier.

Joining the Israeli army is mandatory in order to become a football player in the national team.

This is one of many reasons why the Palestine Football Association (PFA) is asking FIFA to expel Israel and uphold its own rules and regulations.

When the Ukraine war began, athletes from Russia and Belarus were forced to compete as “neutral” athletes. This meant no flag, no anthem, and no connection to the armed forces or support for the war.

Not only are all Israeli football players soldiers, but they regularly advertise and promote the Israeli army, posting photos of themselves in their Israeli army fatigues, and inciting genocide on social media.

One Israeli football player, Shon Weissman asked: “Why haven’t 200 tonnes of bombs already been dropped on Gaza?”. He's in the Israeli air force.

His teammate Tomer Yosefi said on Instagram: “We’ll erase Gaza permanently”.

Even the Israeli women’s team put together a montage where they switch back and forth between their Israeli army uniforms and football jerseys. The message is clear: we are not just football players, but soldiers, and proud of it.

FIFA claims that football should be impartial and apolitical. Yet many Israeli football clubs host receptions for Israeli soldiers, fundraise for them, promote recruitment, and post pro-war propaganda online and obituaries for dead Israelis.

I spoke with Dr. Katarina Pijetlovic, head of the Palestine Football Association legal team, leading the charge to expel Israel.

She told me that the players "should be expelled from football because these are some of the worst and gravest hate speech examples that I have seen in my life in football or sports."

The Israeli Football Association (IFA) even visited an Israeli air force base, currently taking part in the genocide against Gaza.

Over 300 Palestinian athletes have been murdered by Israel since Oct 7, including 266 professional football players, and 60 children from the youth league.

Israel has killed three players from the Palestinian football team; the coach of the Palestine Olympic Football, an international FIFA referee and an assistant referee were also killed by Israel. Most were murdered in their homes alongside their families.

FIFA has betrayed the beautiful game

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed 11 footballers and detained nine.

All sports facilities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed by Israel, including all 41 football pitches, and the headquarters of the Palestine Olympic Committee. Seven football pitches in the West Bank have also been attacked.

Adding insult to injury, Israel has transformed Gaza's football pitches into concentration camps, where men are stripped, blindfolded and forced to sit in stress positions all day. Yarmouk Stadium is one example of this tragedy.

Not only have FIFA done nothing about this criminal behaviour, but they have also tried to evade the issue entirely by postponing it twice.

The PFA first proposed Israel’s expulsion in May at the FIFA Congress in Bangkok. Rather than allow all 211 members to vote on the matter democratically, FIFA kicked the issue to the FIFA Council, which only has 37 members, most of whom are sympathetic to Israel, thereby limiting the chance of a suspension.

Israeli media confirmed that a vote in the FIFA Congress was the Israeli Football Association’s “biggest concern”.

A meeting was meant to be held on July 20. However, at the last minute, FIFA postponed the meeting, claiming it hadn’t received a report from its legal experts, and that the Israelis and Palestinians had requested such an extension.

This statement is simply untrue. People close to the matter informed me that the legal report was already delivered to FIFA a week ago.

FIFA used the short extension granted to both parties, as an excuse to delay the announcement of its legal assessment by another month and a half — namely until after the Olympics. This delay tactic means that Israeli athletes will be able to participate unimpeded.

By comparison, FIFA took only four days to ban Russia’s national football team, clubs, and athletes. FIFA’s justification was that Poland, Sweden, and others refused to play against Russia, even behind closed doors in neutral territory.

However, when it comes to Israel, there are even more countries that refuse to play them, yet FIFA won’t ban them.

Another pretext for banning Russia was the supposed “lack of security” for players, officials, and fans. Belgium and Italy recently refused to host Israeli matches, citing security concerns. Moreover, Israeli matches in the Occupied West Bank present their own set of security challenges. Dr. Pijetlovic tells me that recently in Greece "an Arab guy was beaten half to death […] by Israeli football fans."

None of these things, however, have prompted FIFA to ban Israel.

Even before October 7, FIFA had ample grounds to ban Israel.

Israeli football clubs in the Occupied West Bank are illegal, just like Israeli settlements.

FIFA clearly states that one football association may not play on the territory of another.

Dr. Pijetlovic explains: "The UEFA Secretary General at the time, who instructed the Russian Football Association to stop holding matches in occupied Crimea, was Mr Infantino, the current FIFA president who is now completely ignoring the fact that the Israeli Football Association is joining clubs from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in its national league in Israel. And perhaps even more concerning, hosting matches in the West Bank, which belongs to the Palestinians."

Israeli players are not only violating the Olympic Charter and FIFA’s Statutes and Human Rights Policy, but even the recent court order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), calling on Israel to abide by Art 1 of the Genocide Convention, "to prevent and punish genocide".

This is a binding order, which applies equally to “influential public figures," such as professional footballers and athletes.

The possibility of being expelled from FIFA has sent Israeli officials scrambling.

Officials from the Foreign, Culture and Sport Ministries, and National Security Council have been working to “torpedo” the potential ban.

On X, the Israeli Foreign Minister openly threatened Jibril Rajoub, the head of the PFA and Palestine Olympic Committee, with imprisonment if he did not drop the request to expel Israel from FIFA.

Nothing Russia has done comes even close to Israel’s brutality in Gaza. So how is it that the former is banned but not the latter?

By turning a blind eye, FIFA is complicit in ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the destruction of Palestine’s sports infrastructure.

No one is asking FIFA to mix politics with sports but rather to simply apply its own rules and be fair.

Richard Medhurst is an independent journalist from the United Kingdom with a focus on international relations, US politics, and the Middle East.

Follow him on X: @richimedhurst, Instagram, and YouTube

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.