Political football: FIFA to vote on push to expel Israel

The war in Gaza will officially become a political football on Friday when FIFA, the governing body of the world game, votes on whether to support a Palestinian campaign backed by powerful gulf nations to expel Israel from international matches.

Football Australia, under intense pressure from the pro-Palestinian movement and Jewish groups to pick a side in the socially corrosive conflict, is expected to steer clear of the fray, after the board opted to abstain from the vote.

The push to ban Israel from international football has divided the cochairs of the Australian Republican Movement, Craig Foster and Nova Peris.Credit: Rhett Wyman

A war that has divided university campuses and cultural institutions and triggered a wave of antisemitism will collide with global sporting politics when FIFA delegates in Bangkok decide whether to adopt proposed sanctions against Israel for “international law violations committed by the Israeli occupation in Palestine”.

The Palestine Football Association’s (PFA) 12-page letter to fellow member associations setting out its case against Israel makes clear that its grievances pre-date the war and are anchored in the inclusion of West Bank teams in Israel’s national football competition.

However, this local turf war has been supercharged by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which PFA president, Lieutenant-General Jibril Rajoub, describes as “an existential threat tantamount to genocide”.

The PLA proposal is backed by prominent human rights campaigner and former Socceroo Craig Foster, who last week wrote to Football Australia arguing it had a duty to protect the human rights of all communities, faiths and peoples.

“Upholding international law is not taking a partisan approach,” Foster wrote to Football Australia chairman Anter Isaac.

“Rather, it is the only objective action at our disposal that ensures the protection of all members of our football family around the world.

“Any state found by the ICJ [International Court of Justice] to be plausibly committing genocide must immediately be suspended pending compliance with the provisional measures of the ICJ and with international and humanitarian law.”

Foster’s intervention drew a sharp rebuke from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which pointed out that the ICJ had made no such finding and that Football Australia should not involve itself in a protracted and complex international conflict.

“The importation into Australia of the hatreds and rancour of international conflicts is proving divisive and harmful to social cohesion and community safety in Australia,” ECAJ president Daniel Aghion and co-chief executives Peter Wertheim and Alex Ryvchin wrote in a letter to Isaac.

“We call upon Football Australia to remain politically neutral and honour the sentiment of Australians by refusing to support any proposal to suspend the IFA (Israel Football Association) from competition.

“Sport plays an essential role in bringing people together and emphasising common humanity, and it ought not to be weaponised to stoke division.”

Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni urged Football Australia to support Israel’s expulsion. He said that 91 Palestinian footballers, referees, coaches and administrators have so far been killed in the seven-month war.

Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni.Credit: Eddie Jim

“APAN unequivocally supports the Palestinian request for FIFA to isolate Israel from the global football community and to hold the rogue state accountable for its actions, and calls on Football Australia to have the moral fortitude to support the Palestinian’s petition,” Mashni said.

Foster’s vocal support of the Palestinian motion has increased tensions within the Australian Republican Movement, which Foster co-chairs alongside Olympian and former Labor senator Nova Peris, a vocal supporter of Israel.

Foster and Peris were made co-chairs of the ARM a little over a year ago. A source close to Peris, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the personal matter, said she was considering her position at the republican advocacy group.

An Australian government spokesperson said while Football Australia would make its own decision about how to vote at the FIFA congress, it did not support boycotts of Israel. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said any move to exclude Israel from international football would be shameful.

“Sport should unite us, not divide us,” he said. “The Albanese government needs to clarify the situation and show leadership and stand with our ally, Israel, against this international grandstanding and act of overt anti-semitism.”

The Australian government, through the Australian Institute of Sport, provides nearly $6 million to Football Australia. The women’s team will compete at this year’s Olympics. The men’s team last month failed to qualify.

Anter, who is attending the FIFA congress in Bangkok, declined to be interviewed by this masthead. A long-serving Football Australia director, he was elected board chairman in November.

Since the atrocities of October 7, when Hamas militants murdered 1200 Jews in southern Israel and kidnapped more than 200, an estimated 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

The Palestinian motion has the backing of the West Asia Football Federation, which includes Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon and Yemen.

The president of the West Asian Football Federation, Prince Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan, has publicly called for FIFA to take a “decisive stand” against Israel.

If FIFA ousts Israel, it will join Russia, which was dumped from the 2022 World Cup following its invasion of Ukraine, along with apartheid-era South Africa and the former republic of Yugoslavia, which was excluded from the 1994 World Cup at the height of the Balkans war.

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