Israel participation not on Fifa council meeting agenda in Zurich

Amnesty International is the latest body to urge Fifa, which organises the World Cup, and Uefa, which organises European competitions, to suspend the Israeli Football Association (IFA) from their tournaments.Fifa vice-president Victor Montagliani has said Uefa should make the decision.”First and foremost, [Israel] is a member of Uefa, no different than I have to deal with a member of my region for whatever reason. They have to deal with that,” he said.Israel are third in their World Cup qualifying group – organised by Uefa – six points behind leaders Norway.The top team from each group qualify automatically for the tournament, with the runners-up going into the play-offs.The 2026 World Cup is being co-hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada. US president Donald Trump’s administration has vowed to fight any attempts to block Israel from participating.The UN report said there were reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law had been carried out since the start of the war in 2023.A panel of human rights experts at the UN subsequently called on Fifa and Uefa to suspend Israel’s national team from international football, saying: “Sports must reject the perception that it is business as usual.”Israel has regularly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says they are justified as a means of self-defence. Its foreign ministry called the UN report “distorted and false”.Meanwhile, sports brand Reebok said reports that it asked the IFA to remove its logos from its team kits are “simply not true”.”After a conversation between IFA president Moshe Zuares, Reebok and the local franchisee, the company reversed its decision to end its contract with Israel national teams, and the teams’ uniforms in international matches will feature the company’s logo as it has been up to now,” read an IFA statement reported by the Telegraph., externalA spokesperson for Reebok said it “is proud of our record as a unifier of all cultures on and off the pitch”.They added: “We will continue to honour our brand’s and our local licensee’s commitment to the IFA. We don’t do politics; we do sport.”



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