When Israel is preparing to play FIFA World Champion qualification in 2026, his football teams are confronted with calls that are prohibited by all competitions.
Football fans around the world sang, developed banners and hold red posters that FIFA and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) show “Israel the red card”.
“It is astonishing that it is enough,” the Palestinian content creator Ahmed Bdair told CBC News. “To be honest, all of these things were pleasantly surprised.”
The campaign began on February 12 during a Champions League game in Scotland. Fans of Celtic FC expressed the support of the Palestinians and asked FIFA and UEFA “Israel show the red card”.
According to the organizersThe protest was motivated by Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
“Israel commits genocide and ethnic cleaning; apartheid practices; and it is illegally the Palestinian area.
“We call for football fans around the world that appreciate life, humanity, the dignity, freedom, peace and justice in order to be brave and use their platform to face the crimes of Israel and stand with Palestine,” continued the group.
Since then, the campaign has been distributed to countries ItalyPresent SpainPresent BelgiumPresent MalaysiaPresent TunisiaPresent Brazil And Chileamong other things.
FIFA and UEFA did not respond to the repeated inquiries from CBC after a comment.
The protests come after Israel almost killed 50,000 Palestinians in the Gaza In your post-Okt. 7 operations according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Among the Gaza fatalities are at least 734 Palestinian athletes and scouts, including 382 football players. According to the Palestinian Football Association (Pfa). The Israeli military says it killed at least 20,000 militantwithout providing evidence.
Israel started his offensive in Gaza, after the Hamas attack on Israel, who was led on October 7, 2023, was taken hostage and another 250.
We won’t put off: Israeli football bodies
In a statement on CBC News, the Israel Football Association (IFA) said that his teams and athletes were not held from taking part in global sporting events.
“We encounter some incidents of ignorance, self-righteousness and abysmal hatred, the supposedly protest. The facts and reality are known to us and many others, and no stupid sign will change them,” said the IFA in its email.
This is not the first time that Israel has been checked in the sports world since October 7.
Before the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, demonstrators – including some French legislators and A member of a member – The International Olympic Committee asked to ban Israel from the games.
In the same year, 12 football associations from the Middle East -Prinz Ali bin Al Hussein, the half -brother of Jordan’s king Abdullah II, front of the President of the West Asian Football Association, also called for FIFA to ban Israel from his competitions.
This was followed by the PFA, in which FIFA Israel had suspended after he claimed that the IFA had broken FIFA’s discrimination rules. The FIFA Council ordered one Independent legal analysis and opened a discrimination check -upBut delayed for the suspension of Israel.
The conflict has led to tensions during soccer games with Israeli teams. On November 6 and 7, 2024, fans of the local Dutch Club AFC Ajax and the visit of the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam collided, which led to five hospital admissions and dozens of arrests.
Football journalist Ronan Murphy says that the protests could make some Israeli teams and fans to be unsure about playing games.
“I think there will always be this tension to visit fans or teams who play Israeli clubs, and the Israel national football team who play in away games,” he told CBC News.
“It could come on stage in which the fans will not travel out of fear of violence, or the locals do not want the Israeli fans to come themselves for fear of violence.”
Awareness is the key to the campaign
FIFA and UEFA have not publicly commented on the “Show Israel the Red Card” campaign, which Murphy was not surprising.
“No matter what you say, it will be an unpopular decision. It is impossible for such an organization to please everyone,” he said.
BDAIR, the creator of football content, said he would like to see how Israeli teams were outlawed in a similar way to Russia, which was banned from FIFA and UEFA shortly after Russia had entered Ukraine.
“We saw how much it can damage a certain country,” said Bdair, who is a well-known AC Milan fan on X.
Although Bdair says he doesn’t think that a similar ban on ceiling from Israel is likely, he says that it is important to emphasize the “hypocrisy” that only Russia has been prohibited.
He also says that the awareness that the campaign led to the emergency of the Palestinians is more important than a lock of Israeli teams.
“What is important to me is that people know, and these are more of these protests,” he said.
