RAMALLAH, March 9, 2017 (WAFA) - A wide coalition of Palestinian and international organizations Thursday denounced FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s failure to compel Israel’s national football league to exclude six football teams based in illegal Israeli settlements.

“FIFA’s failure to act against the Israeli settlement clubs renders it complicit in Israel’s violations of international law, and violates its own rules, which forbid member associations from playing in the territory of another member association without the latter’s permission,” the human rights organizations said in a statement.

The FIFA Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine, established in May 2015 and chaired by Tokyo Sexwale, was due to submit its report to the FIFA Council in October 2016. Israeli government officials have pressured the committee to soften its recommendations and prevent the exclusion of Israeli settlement clubs from its leagues.

Despite promises of accountability, it seems that FIFA has bowed to Israeli pressure and is delaying the publication of its committee’s report indefinitely, therefore making more difficult action on the issue in the upcoming FIFA Congress in May 2017.

Sharaf Qutaifan, from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), said, “The FIFA Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine has failed to deliver on its mandate and should be dissolved. FIFA and the committee have bowed to political pressure, refusing to take meaningful action to end the Israeli Football Association’s violation of FIFA statutes. FIFA is breaching its own duty of neutrality and is discriminating against Palestine. Infantino has abandoned his promise to make a clean break from the corruption of his predecessor Sepp Blatter, and has instead followed in his footsteps.”

The Palestinian Football Association, Palestinian and international campaigners, Human Rights Watch, lawmakers and the UN Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace Wilfried Lemke have long urged FIFA to ensure that football teams based in illegal Israeli settlements are excluded from Israeli football leagues.

They have asked FIFA to suspend the Israeli Football Association (IFA) if it refuses to comply. Almost 10,000 football fans wrote to FIFA President Gianni Infantino last month demanding urgent action on Israeli settlements, but FIFA has failed to act.

M.K.