World’s Leading Football Bodies Under Fire Over Israel Policies

Israel’s football violations against Palestinians have been “normalized” by FIFA and UEFA, sparking legal cases and an ICC complaint.

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President of FIFA Gianni Infantino holds up a USA hat as he attends the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace on February 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

The world’s leading football governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA, are facing several legal cases and increasing public pressure over their policies toward Israel, including a case before the International Criminal Court accusing their presidents of aiding and abetting war crimes, complaints over violations of anti-discrimination rules, and outrage over their positions regarding Palestine.

Last week, FIFA announced it would take no action against Israeli football clubs based in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank in response to a complaint filed by the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) in 2024. FIFA had opened two investigations into the Israeli Football Association (IFA)—one regarding Israeli settlement club teams being allowed to play in competitions organized by the IFA, and another into allegations of discrimination by the IFA. On the former, FIFA’s Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee determined no action should be taken because “the final legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter under public international law.”

The controversial decision ran counter to findings by the International Court of Justice, UN Security Council resolutions, and international law experts who all say Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.

“In this decision, FIFA ignored 59 years of UN resolutions and settled international legal doctrine regarding the status of the West Bank as being nothing but Palestinian land that Israel occupies,” Iranian football journalist Nima Roodsari told Drop Site News, describing the decision as a “new low” for FIFA. “This aberration of a decision simply cannot be seen as anything other than FIFA being complicit in occupation and the violation of international law.”

In a separate decision, FIFA sanctioned the IFA for failing to act against persistent racist and anti-Palestinian behavior by supporters of Beitar Jerusalem, an Israeli club, and inflammatory statements by Israeli football officials about the genocide in Gaza. As part of the sanctions, FIFA fined the IFA 150,000 Swiss ⁠francs (around $190,000) and ordered it to implement a mandatory “prevention plan” to combat discrimination, including displaying “a significant and highly visible banner with the words ‘Football Unites the World – No to Discrimination’ alongside the Israel Football Association’s logo” at its next three A-level FIFA competition matches.

“Describing the West Bank as disputed is especially worrying because that kind of language doesn’t just blur reality, it actively helps normalise Israel’s actions. It is the same wording that has been used for years to justify what is happening in Palestine, and it feels like the kind of framing that prepares the ground for further annexation of Palestinian land,” Moroccan-Spanish football journalist Leyla Hamed told Drop Site. “At the same time, FIFA fines the Israeli FA, but the amount is so small for a federation of that scale that it comes across as almost insulting, and it is hard not to see it as a performative move,” she added. “The focus ends up being on the headline of a sanction rather than on the fact that Israeli clubs in illegal settlements are still allowed to compete without consequence. At some point, calling this neutrality just does not hold, because what it really shows is a willingness to avoid accountability.”

The ICC Case

The most serious case currently being considered was filed in mid-February and refers the heads of FIFA and UEFA to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The 120-page filing accuses FIFA president Gianni Infantino and UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin of “aiding and abetting war crimes (specifically, the transfer of civilian population into occupied territories) and crimes against humanity (specifically, apartheid).”

The complaint was filed by advocacy groups Irish Sports for Palestine, Scottish Sports for Palestine, Just Peace Advocates, Sport Scholars for Justice in Palestine, and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

The focus of the ICC case is the same issue as the longstanding PFA complaint to FIFA: that the IFA has been permitted to materially support, recognize, and include in domestic and international competitions clubs that are based in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

At least six to eight Israeli football teams, based in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, participate in the IFA leagues, according to human rights reports. Settlements like Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim, Givat Ze’ev, and Oranit, are home to these clubs, which include Maccabi Ariel and Ariel Municipal. These clubs, allowed by FIFA and UEFA to host games on stolen Palestinian land, also receive structural and financial support from the two football bodies and have played in UEFA-organized competitions over the past years.

The filing argues that in addition to violating FIFA and UEFA statutes, the involvement of settlement clubs normalizes settlements, justifies Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestine, and assists in the relocation of citizens into occupied territory in contravention of the Rome Statute. The complaint also says Palestinians are not allowed to manage the settlement clubs, play for them, or even access their stadiums, which aids and abets apartheid, a crime against humanity.

“Sports is a great avenue to deliver a message and show solidarity with people. Despite Israel’s egregious violations of sporting statutes, an apartheid, genocidal, occupying regime still somehow plays in worldwide sports competitions,” Rebecca O’Keeffe, the chairperson of Irish Sports for Palestine—one of the groups that brought the complaint—told Drop Site News. “Sports boycotts have an effect, and banning apartheid South Africa from sports was decisive in ending it. But there has always been a pattern in FIFA and UEFA to shield Israel from accountability and allow it to act with impunity. No one is above international law. I hope the ICC will open the investigation and see the gravity of Infantino’s and Ceferin’s complicity.”

The groups also allege that both Infantino and Ceferin “cooperated with the highest levels of the Israeli and US governments to facilitate the continued participation of Israel FA and settlement clubs, and to shield them from accountability.” FIFA is also accused of suppressing the PFA’s attempts to gain political and legal authority over settlement clubs for over 15 years, and of ignoring internal advice from its Israel-Palestine Monitoring Committee to ban settlement clubs outright. Meanwhile, UEFA is accused of expanding its own territorial and administrative jurisdiction into occupied Palestine under Ceferin, which includes territories under the jurisdiction of the PFA and thus the Asian Football Confederation.

One of the lawyers who worked on the ICC complaint told Drop Site News that FIFA and UEFA have failed to meet their statutory obligations by shielding Israel from accountability for years. The lawyer, who spoke to Drop Site on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said FIFA and UEFA demonstrated hypocrisy by suspending Russia’s national and club teams from all international football competitions in 2022 following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine but did not take any significant action against Israel.

“We have been investigating Israel’s abuses of Palestinians, particularly Palestinian athletes, across the occupied West Bank since shortly before Infantino and Ceferin’s appointment as FIFA and UEFA presidents in 2016,” the lawyer said. “From day one, both have been very fully aware of Israel’s violations but continued to turn a blind eye to them. That’s why we believe both are complicit in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Infantino attended the inaugural meeting of President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” in Washington, D.C. on February 19, where FIFA announced a $75 million plan to reconstruct Gaza’s devastated sports infrastructure. FIFA signed what it called a “landmark partnership agreement” with the Board of Peace to “help the recovery process in post-conflict areas” across the globe. The plan includes rebuilding 50 mini-pitches in Gaza embedded within residential areas, five full-size pitches, an academy, and a 20,000-seater national stadium over almost five years.

“This is a plan to erase the cultural and historical identity of Palestine and Gaza. Many of these clubs are older than the so-called state of Israel. Israel is dependent on other states. Israel isn’t Russia,” the lawyer said. “The occupation must end. International law must be applied. Show Israel the red card. This is how you help Palestinians, not by putting your hands with Trump to serve his colonial and capitalistic interests.”

Infantino has long worked to ingratiate himself with Trump. In October, he was the only sports official to attend the official signing ceremony in Egypt for the Gaza “ceasefire” deal at Trump’s invitation. In December, during the 2026 World Cup Draw in Washington, D.C., Infantino awarded Trump the inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize.” The award was so hastily arranged that it surprised several of FIFA’s most senior officials, including board members and vice presidents, according to The New York Times.

Calls for countries to boycott the U.S. in the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup—which is being hosted by the U.S., Mexico, and Canada—are also growing. Earlier this month, the Boston Coalition for Palestine voted to join the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition’s call to “Move the FIFA World Cup games out of the U.S.” and “Boycott the U.S.”, citing U.S. war crimes in Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere. Boston is one of the 11 U.S. cities scheduled to host World Cup games beginning mid-June.

Israel’s Destruction of Sports in Gaza

Since October 2023, Israel has destroyed almost 300 sports facilities and killed nearly 1,000 athletes in Gaza and the West Bank. Nine out of Gaza’s 10 stadiums and the facilities of 51 out of 54 of Gaza’s football clubs were damaged by Israel, according to the Palestinian Football Association. Among the more than 450 footballers killed, which include over 100 children, were legendary professional players like Mohamed Barakat, Gaza’s first “centurion of goals” (a player who scores 100 goals or more), and Suliman Al-Obeid, known as the Palestinian Pele. Many of the devastated clubs and stadiums were established before 1948 and constitute integral and significant parts of Palestine and Gaza’s cultural and archaeological history.

Managers were also killed, such as Yousef Al-Heela and Hani Al-Msadar from central Gaza. Academies and their teams were wiped out, including Al-Mohtarifin Academy in Gaza City. Stadiums like Al-Yarmouk Stadium in Gaza City were turned into makeshift detention and torture centers in December 2023. Players from the West Bank and Gaza have also been detained and tortured by Israeli forces, according to the PFA.

Ahmed Hamad, a 23-year-old Beit Hanoun resident, is a goalkeeper for the first-tier Shabab Beit Hanoun Al-Ahli football club, which was a strong contender to win the league in 2023 before the genocide.

“I was juggling between studying at university and playing football with my club to manage to live in Gaza,” Hamad told Drop Site. “Football is my dream and my passion. I was close to joining the Palestinian national team; however, the war shattered all my dreams. My club and my stadium were destroyed. Israel levelled my entire hometown. Nothing is left. We lost the team captain, one of our best young players, many of our biggest fans, and the club veterans.”

O’Keeffe of Irish Sports for Palestine called on sports media organizations to do more coverage of the tragedy in Gaza and the West Bank and to stop peddling the line that “sports and politics shouldn’t mix.”

“Look at FIFA’s plan to rebuild Gaza’s sports facilities, it’s sportswashing of the highest level. Hundreds of sports facilities were destroyed,” she said. “Attacks against the sports community in the West Bank don’t stop. Additionally, the political interference we have seen from FIFA is astounding. It’s disgusting and enraging. Palestinians are victims of this system, which Trump is building up. They all talk about Palestinians but never integrate them into their plans. There is a reason for it, which is to pass their agenda and repackage it as a reconstruction or rehabilitation plan.”