Fifa President Gianni Infantino and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend the 2018 World Cup on July 15, 2018, at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia (Credit: Şebnem Coşkun/AA).
Elham Asaad Buaras
Egypt’s three-time African Cup winner, Mohamed Aboutrika, has joined a chorus of Palestinian rights advocates in blasting football’s world governing body, Fifa, for failing to sanction Israel, after deciding to ban Russia from all football competitions following its invasion of Ukraine.
In an interview with Quds News Network, the former Egyptian football player slammed the politics of “double standards,” since similar sanctions should have been meted out against Israel after its army was involved in the “killing of children and women in Palestine.”
“The decision to suspend Russian clubs and teams from all competitions must be accompanied by a ban on those affiliated with Israel, which has been killing children and women in Palestine for years. You’re using double standards,” said Aboutrika. In 2009, Aboutrika lifted his shirt to reveal a message on his t-shirt underneath.
Mohamed Aboutrika addressing FIFA: "The decision to suspend Russian clubs and teams from all competitions must be accompanied by a ban on those affiliated with Israel, which has been killing children and women in Palestine for years. You re using double standards." pic.twitter.com/pCjyiLlSvW
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) February 28, 2022
‘Sympathise with Gaza’ was his way of celebrating a goal against Sudan in an African Cup match. Fifa warned him officially and insisted that it has a strict ban on such “political” statements.
Fifa and Uefa have now significantly degraded their once hairline stance on political symbols and banners. Several high-profile matches took place in European stadiums draped with Ukrainian flags.
No one seemed to bat an eyelid as the Champions League last 16 matches between Bayern and FC Salzburg had Ukraine flags on each corner flag. Top-flight matches in Germany and the Netherlands followed suit, with one Bundesliga match even proceeding with a CND emblem on the corner flag.
Similarly, football stars in top European leagues, such as Bayern Munich’s Manuel Neuer, were not reprimanded for displaying the Ukrainian flag, as other players in the past were for supporting Palestine. Liverpool fans displayed a Ukraine flag with the words ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ written on it during their match with West Ham.
https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1501673372605952000?s=20&t=FEhbb44hM9rV-5Lwl3IMbw
It is all a far cry from when Celtic fans were fined twice by Uefa for displaying the Palestinian flag in Champions League matches. They were fined £16,000 for a flag display at a Murrayfield Champions League qualifier against KR Reykjavik in 2014.
There then followed an £8,619 fine from Uefa in September for displaying hundreds of Palestinian flags against Israeli team Hapoel Be’er Sheva, with fans stumping up to pay the fine and hand over a six-figure sum to various Palestinian charities.
On February 27, Fifa expressed its “condemnation of the use of force by Russia” and its “deepest solidarity” with Ukrainians, as well as its decision to bar Russia from hosting competitions.
A day later, Fifa took a step further, imposing a total ban that will bar Russia from this year’s World Cup in Qatar. In a joint statement issued with the Union of European Football Association (Uefa), Fifa said, “Following the initial decisions adopted by the Fifa Council and the Uefa Executive Committee, which envisaged the adoption of additional measures, Fifa and Uefa have today decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, shall be suspended from participation in both Fifa and Uefa competitions until further notice.”
“These decisions were adopted today by the Bureau of the Fifa Council and the Executive Committee of UEFA, the highest decision-making bodies of both institutions on such urgent matters.
“Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine. Both presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and rapidly so that football can again be a vector for unity and peace among the people.”
Not content with dumping all Russian national teams and clubs from international competitions, Fifa said it was allowing foreign players and coaches at Russian clubs to “unilaterally suspend their employment contracts” until the end of the 2021-22 season to “facilitate” their departure from Russia.
“In order to facilitate the departure of foreign players and coaches from Russia, in the event that clubs affiliated to the Football Union of Russia (FUR) do not reach a mutual agreement with their respective foreign players and coaches before or on March 10, 2022, and unless otherwise agreed in writing, the foreign players and coaches will have the right to unilaterally suspend their employment contracts with the FUR-affiliated clubs in question until the end of the season in Russia (June 30, 2022),” world football’s governing body said in a statement issued on March 7.
Palestinians have long demanded that Fifa sanction the Israel FA because it includes Israeli teams based in the illegal West Bank settlements and Israel’s attacks on Palestinian athletes.
All of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Syria’s Golan Heights, are illegal under international law and are considered a war crime. Fifa’s own rules (Article 83) stipulate that “Members and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member without the latter’s approval,” which is precisely what Israel does in the occupied West Bank.
Despite this, Fifa never heeded those calls or forced Israel to compete without its flag and national anthem or play, exclusively, at neutral venues. Fifa boasts of its expulsion of South Africa when it was under its white supremacist apartheid regime.
Yet, as major global human rights NGOs have concluded that Israel perpetrates the crime against humanity of apartheid and called for sanctions, Fifa continues to refuse to take action.
"Palestinian[s] have been going through [occupation] for the past 74 years. But I guess because it doesn't fit the narrative of the media of the West, we couldn’t talk about it."
Egyptian squash player Ali Farag calls out double standards of Ukraine coverage ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/6wP4Ma0okh
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 14, 2022
The row over double standards spiralled to other sports when Aboutrika’s Egyptian compatriot and world number one squash player, Ali Farag, also voiced his frustration at the double standards on display.
Farag used his victory speech at the Optasia Championship in London on March 13 to register his disagreement with Western media coverage of the invasion of Ukraine, which the star said did not cover “oppression everywhere in the world”.
He called on people to talk about Palestine the same way they talk about Ukraine. “We’ve never been allowed to speak about politics and sports, but suddenly now it is allowed.” So that we are allowed, I hope that people also look at the oppression everywhere in the world. The Palestinians have been going through that for the past 74 years,” he added.
* The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has, on March 18, refused to suspend FIFA’s ban on Russia taking part in the playoffs for the 2022 World Cup. The CAS, sport’s highest court, has yet to rule on the legality of the ban, but a decision is not expected for several weeks.
