FIFA refuses to sanction Israel over West Bank teams
KOLKATA: Gianni Infantino, the president of world football’s governing body, found himself in strangely familiar FIFA territory yesterday — facing awkward questions about sporting governance and Middle East peacekeeping.
Infantino is in Kolkata for today’s FIFA Under-17 World Cup final between England and Spain, a match expected to break a 32-year-old attendance record for the age-group event. Yesterday, inside the plush JW Marriott hotel, the Swiss lawyer chaired a FIFA Council meeting in which it was decided his organization would not sanction Israel for having teams present in the Occupied West Bank.
In what has proven a constant thorn in the side of FIFA in recent years, the Palestine Football Association has argued that six Israeli clubs have a presence in its territory and in doing so breach the governing body’s statutes forbidding member associations playing in other territories without permission.
Israel counter that there is no permanent border so FIFA rules cannot be applied and argue the Palestinian FA (PFA) is trying to use football as a means to reach a political solution and establish borders.
A Monitoring Committee was set up in late 2015 with the objective of resolving the issue, but two years on progress has been painfully slow, with the chairperson of the committee, Tokyo Sexwale, being urged to resign earlier this week. Infantino declared the case “closed,” adding it “will not be the subject of any further discussion until the legal and/or de facto framework has changed.”
Explaining the Council’s decision, Infantino added: “The Council has taken note of all the different documents and history — issues that have been there for 10,000 years and have not been solved... It was agreed any interference by FIFA in the status quo of football in the relevant territories without the consent of the parties concerned might aggravate the situation of football not only in the territories in question, but also in the greater region affected.”
The PFA, which has already filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over FIFA’s decision in May to not vote on a proposal in which the PFA sought “recognition of its rights to run football activities in accordance with the FIFA statutes” said it was disappointed with the decision.
Susan Shalabi vice president of the Palestinian football association (PFA) told Arab News that the decision had come as a total shock to Palestinians, adding that the PFA had been trying for some time to get FIFA to enforce its own laws.
“We didn’t expect FIFA to violate its own bylaws, to go against its intenational obligations and to show total dis-respect to human rights and international humanitarian law.”
CAS is expected to issue a verdict in January, with Infantino confirming that “any CAS ruling would be implemented by FIFA regardless of what the decision is.”