Legal experts tell Fifa Israel breaking international law as it considers sanctions

Middle East Eye

2 days ago

A group of legal experts that includes two former UN special rapporteurs has told Fifa that Israel and its football association is breaking international law by holding professional football matches on occupied Palestinian territory.
The unprecedented letter to international football's governing body comes as it continues to deliberate over whether it should sanction the Israeli Football Association (IFA), after a proposal submitted by the Palestine Football Association (PFA) in March 2024.
Over a year later, two Fifa committees are still investigating the complaints, one of which relates to discrimination by the IFA, the other to Israeli football teams playing in illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory.
Since the start of its war on Gaza, Israel has also killed over 350 Palestinian footballers, including Hani al-Masdar, one of Palestine's greatest players, and has destroyed the blockaded enclave's pitches and stadiums.
In December 2023, footage showed Israeli troops turning Gaza's al-Yarmouk, once a 9,000-seat football ground, into a makeshift internment camp for Palestinian detainees.
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Beitar Jerusalem, whose Israeli fans call themselves 'the most racist team in the country', has a de facto policy to exclude Arabs and Palestinians.
The club has received support from senior Israeli government figures, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Letter to Fifa
In the letter to Bruno Chiomento, chairman of Fifa's governance, audit and compliance committee, which is investigating what it calls 'the participation in Israeli competitions of Israeli football teams allegedly based in the territory of Palestine', the group of judges, lawyers and scholars outlined the 'unassailable facts' relating to the illegality of Israeli settlements.
The 30 signatories to the letter include former UN special rapporteurs on human rights in occupied Palestine John Dugard and Michael Lynk, Ardi Imseis, who is representing Palestine at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israeli historian Ilan Pappe and William Schabas, a member of the Sierra Leone truth and reconciliation commission.
'This letter doesn't explicitly tell Fifa to suspend or expel Israel, but it leaves them in no doubt that that's what their own rules require them to do'
- Nicholas McGeehan, FairSquare
The letter cites ICJ's 2024 pronouncement on Israel's illegal occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It refers as well to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to UN Security Council Resolutions 446 from 1979, and to 2016's UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which describes settlements as 'a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution'.
'In light of the above, the governance, audit and compliance committee need not concern itself with the question of the legality of Israeli settlements, but simply the issue of whether Israeli teams continue to play football matches in settlements in the West Bank,' the letter reads.
'If that is the case, as the PFA alleges and the IFA has never denied, then the IFA is ipso facto in violation of article 64 (2) of the Fifa Statutes, which states that 'Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without the latter's approval'.'
Legal obligations
Nicholas McGeehan, founder of FairSquare, a non-profit human rights group, told Middle East Eye that 'it speaks to the seriousness of the issue at hand, that academics of this stature would make an intervention like this'.
McGeehan said that while 'this letter doesn't explicitly tell Fifa to suspend or expel Israel from international football, it leaves them in no doubt that that's what their own rules require them to do.'
Shane Darcy, a law professor who signed the letter and is the deputy director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, told MEE that the ICJ opinion of 2024, which found that Israel's presence in occupied Palestine was unlawful and must be ended 'as rapidly as possibly', was 'especially significant'.
'International organisations such as Fifa must play their part to ensure the respect of long-established rules'
- Shane Darcy, Irish Centre for Human Rights
'Moreover, the court said that international organisations - which would include Fifa - are under an obligation not to recognise as legal the unlawful situation arising from Israel's presence in the West Bank,' he said.
By allowing Israeli teams to play there, Darcy said, Fifa was not just going against its own statutes, it was going 'against fundamental precepts of international law as laid out by the World Court'.
'At a time when international humanitarian law is being disregarded with impunity in Gaza, international organisations such as Fifa must play their part to ensure the respect of long-established rules by its members.'
The PFA first complained to Fifa about Israeli teams playing matches in occupied West Bank settlements, including Ma'aleh Adumim, Kiryat Arba, Givat Zeev, Bikat Hayarden and Ariel, in 2013.
Four years later, in 2017, Fifa's council declined to take any action, saying that the 'final status of the West Bank territories is the concern of the competent international public law authorities', and that Fifa 'must remain neutral with regard to political matters'.
In May 2024, after the PFA submitted its request to adopt sanctions against Israel, citing international law violations and the failure of the IFA in 'taking decisive action against discrimination and racism', Fifa President Gianni Infantino ignored requests for the matter to be put to a vote at the 74th Fifa congress.
The decision has continued to be deferred since then. The IFA has called the Palestinian Football Association's request a 'cynical political move'.