By Paul Nicholson in Manama, Bahrain
May 8 – The heat on the Palestine-Israel dispute was turned up a notch today prior to FIFA’s Congress on Thursday with Asian Football Confederation president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa telling the AFC Congress in his opening remarks that the AFC stood united with Palestine and urged “FIFA to come up with the best solution as soon as possible”.
Meanwhile there were reports that Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu had called FIFA president Gianni Infantino asking he remove the Israel-Palestine item from the Congress agenda later this Thursday.
For the AFC and Palestine the urgent solution is for Israel to remove the six teams playing in the West Bank settlement areas from the Israeli leagues. They cite article 72.2 of the FIFA Statutes: “Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association.”
The Israelis claim that the teams are playing on settled land in Zone C of the division of the West Bank and that the Palestinians are using this as a first step to getting the Israeli FA either expelled or suspended from FIFA.
The Palestinians claim this is not the case, but are adamant there can no compromise for the Israeli West Bank teams. The border is generally between 20-60km away and they maintain the teams could easily play their home games there.
The escalation of this dispute on to a geo-political battleground is now believed by many within FIFA to be getting out of control and that there must be a resolution. Ironically both the Israelis and the Palestinians felt they were making progress in the original dispute between the two nations over the free movement of teams and equipment within Palestine.
The Palestinians are keen not to derail that process, but the issue of the West Bank is a raw one for both sides and has been only escalated – particularly as various human rights groups have taken the opportunity to grandstand on it.
Both sides claim that the other is trying to redraw the territorial borders through football.
FIFA has been trying to mediate in the dispute for more than three years and a committee led by South African Tokyo Sexwale will meet again with both sides on Tuesday May 9 in Bahrain in a final attempt to find some common ground before it goes before Congress on Thursday.
Sexwale had initially proposed a six-month period for the Israelis to end play and remove the teams from the Israeli league or relocate them in Israel. The Israelis are uncomfortable with this.
The solution looks like being there will be no solution at this point, and certainly not a happy ending. For their part AFC president Shaikh Salman emphasised again in his closing remarks of the AFC Congress that “we are hand-in-hand with our Palestinian brothers”.
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