Palestine FA says Fifa ban over Messi is absurd
The Palestinian Football Association has condemned Fifa’s decision to ban its president, Jibril Rajoub, for a year over his comments about Lionel Messi before an Argentina match against Israel in Jerusalem.
On Friday, the international football body suspended the head of the Palestinian association for breaching article 53 of its disciplinary code, which pertains to “inciting hatred and violence” after he urged fans to burn football shirts bearing Messi’s name.
The football chief will not be allowed to attend any football matches or competitions in any capacity for 12 months and he has been handed a $20,000 (Dh73,460) fine.
The association yesterday lashed out at the ban in a statement to The National, calling Fifa’s decision disproportionate, “absurd and lacking in evidence”.
It said the media was told of the ban before it was and that it was a result of a “request” by the Israeli Football Association and “some settler extremist group” in the occupied West Bank.
The association said that evidence provided to Fifa by Mr Rajoub’s legal team was “not looked into”.
It said Messi and the Argentinian Football Association had not submitted a complaint about Mr Rajoub’s words. “We are going to target him personally and we call on all to burn his picture and his shirt and to abandon him,” he reportedly said in June.
Mr Rajoub will miss the Asian Games that begin in the UAE in January but he will be allowed to continue running the association.
His comments came before a proposed game between Argentina and Israel in Jerusalem, the country’s final warmup game before the 2018 World Cup. The game was set to be moved to another Israeli city after protests when it was cancelled.
Israeli officials claimed the match was called off because of threats towards Messi but the Palestinians maintain it was because of pressure for the team not to play in Jerusalem, the city that Palestinians want part of for the future capital of their sovereign state.
Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev was fiercely criticised at home for moving the match to Jerusalem in what was widely perceived as a public relations move after the US relocated its embassy to the city.
She called Mr Rajoub a terrorist after Fifa’s ban, and tried to justify the cancellation of the game as a result of a Palestinian campaign against Messi and Argentina in a bid to win back those who criticised her.
The match was to be played at Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium, which is built on the site of a former Palestinian village razed by Israel during its creation in 1948.
Mr Rajoub has long railed against Israel at the world footballing body’s meetings, attacking it for forming football teams in the occupied West Bank settlements, viewed by most of the international community as illegal.
He has also criticised Israel’s restrictions on the movement of Palestinian footballers, particularly from Gaza to the West Bank. The Palestinian FA wants settlement teams banned and the Israeli FA suspended.