Ali Thameem
A group of eight independent UN human rights experts has called on FIFA and UEFA to suspend Israel from international football.
“Sports must reject the perception that it is business as usual,” the experts said in the statement released on Tuesday. “Sporting bodies must not turn a blind eye to grave human rights violations, especially when their platforms are used to normalize injustices”.
Countries hosting or engaging in competitions with Israel, they said, must recognize their obligations not to remain neutral. The experts also emphasized that any boycott should be directed at the State of Israel, rather than individual athletes. “National teams representing States that commit massive human rights violations can and should be suspended, as has happened in the past.”
On the topic of the rights of individual athletes, as of last month, a total of 808 athletes have been killed by Israel since 7 October 2023, including 421 footballers. Nearly half were children.
“I’m not a supporter of banning the athletes”, said UEFA President, earlier this month. Speaking to Politico, Čeferin had brushed off the issue by saying “because what can an athlete do to their government to stop the war?”
The double standards of UEFA are evident in the president’s remarks. The Europe’s foremost governing body of football had banned Russia – its national teams and its clubs – four days after the country invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Twenty two months into “the most-documented genocide in history”, sporting bodies are still at best tip-toeing around the issue, and at worst platforming and celebrating Israeli athletes as if business is in fact, as usual. The likes of Maccabi Tel Aviv are shamelessly playing at the UEFA Europa League, the second highest tournament in club football. Israeli national team is still playing at the qualifiers for next year’s World Cup.
On Tuesday’s statement, the UN experts argue that FIFA and UEFA, as international sports associations, are bound by human rights law under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. “There is a legal and moral imperative to take every measure possible to end the genocide in Gaza now,” the statement read.
For the Maldives, the question of sports-boycott remains unsettled. The government has already banned Israeli passports and joined South Africa’s motion at the International Court of Justice condemning the genocide. Yet Maldivian sports associations have not boycotted competitions which give platforms to Israeli athletes. For instance, 28 Israeli swimmers took part at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore this August, where Maldives also competed.
