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Calls Grow for UEFA to Suspend Israel from International Competitions Amid Ongoing Gaza Genocide

Calls Grow for UEFA to Suspend Israel from International Competitions Amid Ongoing Gaza Genocide

News August 14, 2025
Calls Grow for UEFA to Suspend Israel from International Competitions Amid Ongoing Gaza Genocide
Udine (Quds News Network)- Calls for UEFA to suspend Israel from international competitions have intensified recently amid the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Fans and human rights groups have accused UEFA of enabling Israel to sportwash its crimes. UEFA unfurled a banner with the message “Stop Killing Children. Stop Killing Civilians” on the pitch before the Super Cup football match between Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham in Udine, Italy, in the wake of heavy fallout over its meek tribute to a Palestinian player killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza. “The message is loud and clear,” European football’s governing body said in a post on X on Wednesday. “A banner. A call.” Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah last week criticised a UEFA tribute to the late Suleiman al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele”, after European football’s governing body failed to reference the circumstances surrounding his killing. The Palestine Football Association said al-Obeid, 41, was killed by an Israeli attack on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip. In a brief post on X, UEFA called the former national team member “a talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times”. Salah responded, “Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?” The banner move also came a day after the UEFA Foundation for Children announced its latest initiative to help children affected by war in different parts of the world – a partnership with Medecins du Monde, Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials MSF), and Handicap International. They are charities “providing vital humanitarian help for the children of Gaza,” UEFA said in a news release on Tuesday. Nine children refugees from Palestine, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Iraq carried the banner onto the field of play before the game began. Two Palestinian refugee children from Gaza took part in the medal ceremony alongside UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin at the 2025 UEFA Super Cup following an invitation from the UEFA Foundation for Children. In response, anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian fans and activists criticized UEFA for still allowing Israel to participate in international football, despite its ongoing genocide in Gaza and the continued blockade of humanitarian aid. This week, Euro-Med Monitor said Israel has killed 664 Palestinian athletes since the start of the genocide in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. Athletes have been killed or, like most of Gaza’s population, forced to devote their time and effort to finding shelter and food, amid ongoing Israeli military attacks, repeated displacement, and starvation and blockade policies that have left the entire population food insecure and claimed the lives of approximately 220 people to date, the monitor added. In July alone, the Israeli forces killed 40 athletes and scouts, the vast majority in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestine Olympic Committee. Israel has also targeted all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip, including the sports sector. According to the Palestinian Football Association, the Israeli forces have destroyed 264 sports facilities, 184 completely and 81 partially. Sports activities in the Gaza Strip have been completely suspended since October 2023 due to the widespread and systematic targeting of sports infrastructure, which has been almost entirely destroyed. The monitor said the global influence of football associations, particularly FIFA and UEFA, “places a double responsibility on them to uphold human rights principles and exclude national associations whose member states are implicated in serious crimes.” International and continental sports federations refuse to suspend Israel’s membership, in a “blatant violation of the values and principles they claim to uphold,” Euro-Med Monitor said. This “reflects a selective, double-standard application of the rules governing the participation of states, clubs, and individuals in international and continental competitions, whether official or friendly.” The normalisation by sports federations of the participation of representatives of a “state committing genocide is not only a legal violation but also an unprecedented moral failure.” Allowing Israeli athletes to perform before audiences of hundreds of millions “misleads the public and enables Israel to use sporting events as a powerful tool to influence global opinion.” In many cases, Israeli athletes themselves are implicated in grave violations against Palestinian civilians, the monitor noted, with consistent estimates indicating that about 30 members of the Israeli delegation to the 2024 Paris Olympics served in the Israeli military or publicly supported the genocide in the Gaza Strip. The monitor pointed out to Israel’s policy of compulsory conscription that makes it “reasonable to believe that most people of active athletic age served as reserve soldiers and may have participated in crimes committed during the genocide in the Gaza Strip, particularly given the army’s extensive and long-standing reliance on reserve forces to destroy civilians and infrastructure in the enclave.” FIFA swiftly suspended Russia and its football clubs from official activities following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with UEFA following suit by banning Russian teams from European championships and prohibiting matches on Russian soil. The International Olympic Committee also acted, citing allegations of human rights violations, aggression against the sovereignty of an independent state, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

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