Latest news with #ClubDeportivoPalestino
Irish Daily Mirror
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Daily Mirror
Chilean club with link to Celtic fans offer hope against horrors in Gaza
JOSÉ Nabzo turns his laptop around. The view switches from a small club office to the empty stands of the Estadio Municipal de La Cisterna near Santiago and the Andes Mountains. 'Now it's very quiet, it's Monday, but on match day the Palestinian flags are everywhere, people eating shawarma and falafel, it's noisy,' says Nabzo. 'It's about the message. Solidarity and peace. 'We don't want to enter into politics, religion… we don't speak about that. This club just speaks about solidarity with Palestinian people and about peace.' Nabzo is the communications officer for Club Deportivo Palestino, one of the leading teams in Chilean top flight football. In the past they have been coached by the likes of former Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini and Fernando Riera, the godfather of Chilean football who led the country to third place at the 1962 World Cup. But it's the club's links to Palestine that have brought them to international prominence in recent years and even prompted a link-up with Celtic fans. 'To work here is a dream. I have Palestinian origins on both sides — grandfather and grandmother,' says Nabzo. 'Palestino have been an ambassador for Palestinians in Chile for a long time, but now it's not just in Chile, it's the world.' He shows a photo of children queuing for food in Gaza. 'A photo journalist for Al Jazeera sent me the picture,' he says. 'One of the kids is wearing a Palestino jersey. 'I sent that photo to all workers and players and directors of this club. I said them, 'Look, this is Palestino.' 'The Palestine national team is very important, but we feel like another national team for Palestine.' Conflict in Gaza has changed everything at the club. On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants entered Israel from Gaza, killing over 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. Since then, Israeli forces have killed in excess of 56,000 Palestinians — more than half of them women and children. Gaza has been obliterated, with buildings and infrastructure destroyed and civilian areas regularly hit by missile strikes. Nearly all of the area's two million-plus population have been displaced. 'From October 2023, the club changed,' says Nabzo. 'In the past we are sending messages, putting the map of Palestine on the jersey, we are close to Palestine. 'But from this moment in October 2023, the club changed and the link with Palestine changed.' No international journalists have been allowed to enter Gaza for 20 months and more than 200 local journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli military attacks. The details that have emerged are beyond bleak. Last month, a leading Red Cross official described conditions as 'worse than hell on earth' and limited aid has led to starvation amid the debris. Reaching that aid has also become increasingly more and more dangerous. On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that Israeli forces opened fire towards hundreds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks, killing 25 and wounding another 146. There were 44 people killed in total in two separate incidents. Palestino, a football club 13,000kms away in Chile, have become a symbol of hope for Palestinians. 'When the Palestine national team played a World Cup qualifier in Kuwait, we saw pictures of many fans with Palestino jerseys,' he says. 'The club has three academies in Palestine. One is in Gaza and is obviously not working now. Two in Ramallah are working and that is very good news. 'It's important for kids to change their reality.' Chile has the biggest Palestinian community outside of the Arab world and the Santiago club was founded in 1920 by Palestinian immigrants. 'It's very important that date because it's 28 years before the creation of the state of Israel,' he says. 'Club Deportivo Palestino is a good point in history to say, okay Palestinian identity existed previously. 'These Palestinian immigrants in Chile created this club with the objective to conserve and keep the tradition and culture and to be a house of Palestinians in Chile.' The club turned professional in 1952 and won the Chilean men's Primera Division in 1955 and 1978. Nabzo's father was a director of the club in the past and witnessed the emergence of Pellegrini as a coach during his time at the club before he went on to manage the likes of City and Real Madrid. Palestino made headlines in 2014 for a jersey that featured the map of Palestine before the creation of the state of Israel in the design. The club were fined and the jersey was eventually banned. More recently, the club adopted a green and white hooped shirt for their third kit as a tribute to Celtic's Green Brigade supporters' group. 'Green Brigade make a lot of actions to show solidarity with Palestine,' he says. 'And they don't do it in a small Scottish Cup match, they do it in the Champions League against the biggest names, the biggest teams. 'In very important matches they give a strong message: 'Stop the genocide'. 'As a way of showing we are grateful, the club contacted the Green Brigade and made the jersey with the colours and design of Celtic. 'On the back, they have the slogan of Palestino: 'More than a team, a whole people'. 'We're happy to see that jersey in a lot of protests and a lot of countries, in different stadiums, in different continents.' This season the Palestino men's team have been competing in the Copa Sudamericana — South America's equivalent of the Europa League — and last season featured in the Copa Libertadores — the equivalent of the Champions League. They currently lie third in Chile's Primera Division, while the women's team are in eighth. Men's coach Lucas Bovaglio regularly wears a keffiyeh during matches and the Estadio Municipal de La Cisterna has become a place for fans to show solidarity with those suffering in Gaza. The club have two players of Palestinian origin in the first teams — Alejandro Hales in the men's team and Rania Sansur for the women's team. Nabzo is confident for the remainder of the season on the pitch. But what's happening off it has become just as important now. 'Rania also plays for the Palestinian national team,' he says. 'She travels from Chile to Jordan each FIFA date. It's very hard for her, but very beautiful for Rania and for us. 'We are Palestino, a club founded by and for Palestinian immigrants and we have a player in the national team of Palestine. 'It's a connection. It's very important.' Right now, more than ever.
CBC
19-05-2025
- Sport
- CBC
How a soccer team in Chile with Palestinian roots gives fans reason to cheer amid Gaza war
Nahil Sadaqa loves soccer — and one of his favourite teams helps him connect with his Palestinian identity. This club plays in Palestinian colours, its fans wave Palestinian flags, its sponsors include the Bank of Palestine and its jerseys have images of the keffiyeh and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But the team isn't based in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank or even the Middle East. This team — Club Deportivo Palestino — plays its games more than 13,000 kilometres away in Chile. "The Palestinian people who like playing soccer or [are] soccer fans, they know about the team," Sadaqa told CBC News from Halifax. "The people who don't know soccer or don't follow soccer, [they're] learning about this team." Founded in 1920 by Palestinian immigrants, Palestino has become one of Chile's top soccer clubs, finishing fifth or higher in the country's first division in five of the last six seasons. The team is also a regular participant in the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana, South America's top soccer competitions. While the Spanish-speaking players have made a name for themselves on the pitch, the Chilean team has built an international fan base for its historic connection to the Palestinian territories. "It's not about politicians, it's not about religions, it's not about the sports. It's about humanity, it is about solidarity, it's about the main word: peace," José Nabzo, Palestino's head of communications, said in an interview from Santiago, Chile's capital. The fan base has only grown since Israel's invasion of Gaza, which began after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. In Gaza, more than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, and the population is also suffering from disease and starvation, the World Health Organization says. Since October 2023, Palestino fans, players and personnel have worn keffiyehs and jerseys displaying images of watermelons — a symbol of Palestinian resistance — during games. The club also has an agreement with the Aida Youth Center, a Palestinian organization in Bethlehem, to provide sportswear and collaborate in sports and social activities. "We're watching a genocide. Thousands and thousands of deaths and a lot — the majority — is innocent," said Nabzo, whose grandparents are Palestinian. "We don't forget them. We won't stop until Palestine is in peace." Sadaqa, who has family and in-laws in the West Bank and Gaza, said the club gives those living there "relief" and shows that "we, the Palestinian people, survive wherever we go." Chile home to 500,000 Palestinians Palestinians have a long history in Chile. An estimated 500,000 call the South American nation home — the largest Palestinian population outside of the Middle East. Brenda Elsey, author of Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile, said the first Palestinians moved to Chile — along with Lebanese and Syrians — in the 19th century. "[They] were fleeing Turkish conscription, mostly beginning in the 1890s, and immigration kind of peaks right around pre-World War I," Elsey, a historian at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., told CBC News. The vast majority of the Palestinians were Christian, but they were stereotyped as lacking business ethics and were accused of being unable to assimilate into Chile. So Palestino was founded to make integration easier, she said. The soccer team stopped playing after just a few years, however, due to racial abuse from spectators, according to Elsey. "They will play basketball, they will play tennis and they support British sports," she said. "So they continue to exist as social clubs and sports clubs. They are not a soccer club after 1923." The soccer team returned in 1949 and became professional in 1952. Since then, it's won two titles in the Chilean Primera División — the country's top soccer league — and three Copa Chiles. Throughout its history, the club remained a cultural hub for Palestinians in Chile. "These sports clubs and these social clubs ... allow people to continue to have this sense of community while in Chile and also feel very Chilean," Elsey said. "They carve a place for themselves and they write home and they tell people it's better. And then you've got yourself a real community." Palestinian activism Although Palestino has long had a historic connection to the Palestinian territories, Nabzo said it was initially mostly "symbolic." But the club has more strongly tapped into that identity in the 21st century. In 2016, for example, the club visited the West Bank and played two games there, including one against the official Palestinian national team. "I remember as soon as we got there, it was crazy. People [were] cheering for us with the [Palestino] T-shirt, like everyone knows pretty well who we are," said Diego Gutiérrez, a Canadian who was a member of Palestino from 2015-19 and now plays for Calgary-based Cavalry FC in the Canadian Premier League. Some Palestino team members have even played for the Palestinian national team, including Gutiérrez's friend, Nicolás Zedán. "I remember he always ... dreamed [of] playing for the team because he was [of Palestinian descent], and he always tried hard," Gutiérrez said. "He was very happy and honoured to dress [for] Palestine." The team has also supported some foreign Palestinian activism efforts, including an encampment at the University of Toronto last year. But some moves have landed the team in hot water. In 2014, the Football Federation of Chile fined the club after the number "1" on the back of players' jerseys was shaped like a map of pre-1948 Palestine, before Israel's creation. While the map was removed from the back, it's still featured on the players' left shirt sleeves and on the back of their socks — a reminder of the existence of Palestinian identity before the State of Israel was created in 1948, Nabzo said. During the war that led to the creation of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes, a period referred to as Nakba. "It's very important for us to say Club Palestino was founded in 1920, 28 years before the creation of the State of Israel," he said. "That broke the theory ... that the land [didn't have] any people and that thing called Palestine or Palestinian identity didn't exist." With Palestino near the top of the Primera División and in the Copa Sudamericana's knockout-round playoffs, Nabzo said he hopes the team can soon represent Palestinians on a podium. "The main [thing] is to be very competitive and win very important games, beat important teams ... and win trophies," he said. "That is the best way to represent the Palestinian cause."
