While global politics reckons with a broken ceasefire in Palestine, attention is again on exerting pressure via the long-term boycott campaigns targeting Israel. This issue has become especially fraught in the world of football, where campaigners such as the Democracy in Europe movement 2025 and FairSquare have been building pressure for institutions like UEFA and FIFA to act, after months of widespread violence against athletes and infrastructure. 

Since the beginning of Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2023, over 400 footballers have been killed as a direct result of Israeli strikes. Their number includes Shadi Abu-Alarraj, the Khan Younis goalkeeper, FIFA certified referee Mohammed Khattab, and the longstanding and influential Olympic football coach Hani Al Masdar. That is to say nothing of the nearly one hundred children and youth team players killed during the genocide. 

Tension dogged France’s Nations League match with Israel in Paris in November, with the French president Emmanuel Macron told not to attend by the leftist France Unbowed Party. Macron attended anyway, while several thousand pro-Palestinian and anti-racist organisations also staged protests in the capital to coincide with the event. The Israeli national anthem was subject to boos and whistles prior to the match, while the away leg the previous month — a 4-1 French victory — had to be played in neutral Budapest.

Palestinian domestic football has been at a standstill in both the West Bank and Gaza since October 2023. But the side’s recent performance in the Asia Cup and its improving international status offer a beacon of light for many. Questions loom, however, over what the immediate future holds for the sport in a country that became a member of football’s global governing body FIFA in 1998.

For the former Palestine women’s national team captain, Claudie Salameh, her ongoing endeavour to further football for young girls is ‘part of my resistance’. In a video call from her home in Ramallah, Salameh told me that she had to overcome cultural barriers such as not being taken seriously as a footballer and the team having no real plan to prevent injuries. 

She describes having to navigate checkpoints in the occupied West Bank as an obstacle to her progress during her playing career and as a coach of Ramallah’s first team — an often draining process — but believes the gap between Palestine’s national team and others will continue to shrink with outside support. ‘Palestinians are used to having a big hit every five years,’ says Salameh, ‘whether it’s a war, whether it’s clashes, whether it’s an Intifada, there’s a big hit that we have to face. And I believe that [with] this, we’re going to have to work for 20 years or more to come back from it.’

While the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign has long been a key part of Palestinian demands internationally, pressure has been growing to exclude the Israel Football Association (IFA) from FIFA. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) have added support to these mounting calls, arguing that ‘FIFA’s complicity and failure to hold Israel to account makes a mockery of international law and FIFA’s own statutes. It feeds the culture of impunity that allows Israel to escalate its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.’

At a FIFA council meeting in October last year, FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino spoke about events in Gaza, confirming that the organisation had sought legal advice in response to the Palestinian FA’s proposal in May to sanction Israel’s FA. ‘The ongoing violence in the region confirms that above all considerations, and as stated at the 74th FIFA Congress, we need peace,’ stated Infantino. ‘As we remain extremely shocked by what is happening, and our thoughts are with those who are suffering, we urge all parties to restore peace to the region with immediate effect.’ 

PACBI and other international lobbyists believe FIFA’s efforts to be inadequate, and are persisting with their campaign, noting historical precedents for sanctioning members. Most famously, South Africa was expelled from FIFA in 1976 for its racist Apartheid regime, which followed UN sanctions that sought to ‘suspend cultural, educational, sporting and other exchanges with the racist regime and with organizations or institutions in South Africa which practise apartheid.’ More recently, Russia has been banned from senior competitive football since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

To understand why Israel has not been sanctioned in this way, you have to look closely at FIFA’s rules, which some argue have been engineered in such a way as to allow the body to be selective about the criteria for applying them. According to Article 4 of the governing bodies’ statutes, FIFA ‘remains neutral in matters of religion and politics’, but within the same guidelines it makes clear that discrimination of any kind is punishable by ‘suspension or expulsion’. What FIFA are now investigating is the participation of unauthorised Israeli teams, those allegedly based in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, in Israeli football competitions — an incursion against FIFA statutes.

Palestinian journalist Bassil Mikdadi started his Football Palestine publication in 2008 and has watched the game’s progress in the West Bank and Gaza closely. He has covered a range of developments: from a lack of consistent league play, to the men’s national team’s first qualification for the Asia Cup in 2014, through to them progressing past the group stage into the round of 16 at the last iteration in 2023. 

For Mikdadi, from the outside looking in, FIFA’s governance is built on inconsistency. ‘It’s an organisation that defers to power,’ he says. ‘If you have it, then FIFA wants to be your friend, and they don’t want to rock the boat.’ Mikdadi questions how effective the Palestinian FA have been at this aspect of politicking, noting the mixed results of their campaigning. ‘If the Palestinian Football Association is throwing around its weight as a FIFA member, and if they can get other FIFA members, which are those that are sympathetic and willing to lend an ear, you could probably call together 20 or 30 FAs easily and make a campaign out of that and back that up.

‘You’re asking a lot of individuals to risk everything to make a statement that you know is going to be misconstrued by the media,’ he continues, ‘that you know your opponents are going to try and paint as anti-Semitic. So you know, you’re just left with, I think, a rudderless movement, [albeit one that is] very strong at the grassroots level. The reason why it’s getting spoken about is because of the BDS movement, but with no leadership at the top, because those with power just don’t know how to exert influence.’

The Palestinian FA told me that it was focused on pursuing legal and diplomatic channels. Key priorities include sustained pressure on FIFA’s judicial bodies, enhanced global advocacy, and engaging with federations and civil society to ensure accountability. It has also submitted evidence of documentation of violations, including targeting of players, stadiums, and infrastructure, to FIFA and other international bodies. They say they have sought legal opinions and continue to demand sanctions in line with FIFA statutes, which ‘prohibit the politicization of football’ and the establishment of teams in occupied territories.

The Palestinian FA told me that it backs PACBI’s ongoing campaign, and said that it underscored the growing global recognition of the systematic targeting of Palestinian sports. ‘While our approaches may differ, our shared goal is ensuring that no footballing entity is above accountability,’ it added.

Despite the odds, Palestinian football is surviving, with many of the players taking leave and playing in Jordan, Libya, Egypt, and Qatar. But it’s clear that on the governance side there are limitations. When Russia was handed its current ban, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld it after an unsuccessful Russian appeal. That decision hinged legally on what is called force majeure, an unexpected event that prevents someone from fulfilling their obligations. It’s often included in contracts as a clause that frees both parties from liability in such circumstances. 

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the reaction around Europe was exceptional and pushed the matter largely out of FIFA and UEFA hands. Poland captain Robert Lewandowski, along with FAs whose national sides had made the play-offs for the 2022 World Cup such as the Swedish and Czech bodies, were vocal in their opposition to Russia’s involvement. The resulting decision to enforce the ban was contingent on the other teams refusing to play them, making it impossible for Russia to continue; it was therefore not a question of FIFA invoking the statutes handling discrimination.

Sadly, in the current circumstances, with the majority of world powers supporting Israel politically, there is a notable lack of political consensus that would lead to the sort of external pressure that forces sporting governing bodies to make decisions on the basis of so-called logistics, and what they deem to be exceptional circumstances.

A glimmer of hope is the Norwegian FF, who have been drawn with Israel in their World Cup qualification group as they bid to reach the finals for the first time since 1998. Its president Lisa Klaveness said in December the federation was ‘closely monitoring the situation with both FIFA, UEFA and the Norwegian authorities.’  

Barriers are overcome by way of consistency and strategy, but Palestine as a sporting entity will need all the help it can get to manoeuvre itself out of the racially othered position it occupies in the international sporting hierarchy. One wonders if open pressure from clubs and players would begin to force the hand of the establishment. Mikdadi doubts that it can serve as inspiration for campaigners. He names the two big global players, the USA and Saudi Arabia, neither of whom are supportive of the Palestinian cause, as the main reason for his pessimism. 

Meanwhile, he’s focused on the Palestine team hitting new heights on the pitch, starting with qualification for the next world cup in North and Central America, potentially via the playoffs. ‘I think the team is super talented, with all these players in really good form with their clubs. Maybe they can do it. I’m a little more optimistic on the sporting front than I am on the political front.’