As FIFA finalizes preparations for the expanded Club World Cup in the United States, football fans across the globe are demanding that Israel be shown the red card—just as Russia was barred following its invasion of Ukraine. From Glasgow to Cape Town, stadiums are echoing with calls to ban Israel over its war on Gaza—especially now, as Israel’s latest strikes on Iran threaten to ignite a wider regional war.
Stadiums from Scotland to South Africa have echoed with chants accusing Israel of genocide, apartheid, and war crimes. And with Israeli warplanes continuing to devastate Gaza — killing hundreds of Palestinian athletes and destroying stadiums — the international movement to isolate Israel through sport has never been louder.
“FIFA banned Russia within days. But after 18 months of genocide in Gaza, Israel still enjoys full privileges,” said Maree Shepherd of the campaign Show Israeli Genocide the Red Card in April. “Fans everywhere are saying: enough.”
The Green Brigade, a group of soccer fans supporting the Scottish Celtic soccer team, renewed calls to suspend Israel during a Celtic and Bayern Munich Champions League match on February 12, 2025.
During the match, fans unfurled a banner reading, “Show ‘Israel’ the red card.”
“Last night, Celtic fans showed ‘Israel’ the red card,” the Green Brigade said in a press release. This was a direct message to UEFA [Union of European Football Associations] and FIFA [International Federation of Association Football] to apply their respective statutes and suspend ‘Israel’ from competition.”
Since then, the protest has made waves across the world, with similar demonstrations in 30 countries so far, including Australia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Belgium, Ireland, Malaysia, Tunisia, Brazil, and Chile.
“If Israel representatives, whether that’s football teams or [other] sports, have free rein to go around the world and compete and represent Israel, then that just normalizes apartheid and genocide,” Maree Shepherd from the movement “Show Israeli Genocide the Red Card” told MintPress News. “And we want to put a stop to that.”
A longstanding issue
Calls to ban Israel from international sports aren’t new. The Red Card Israel movement started in South Africa in December 2023, urging FIFA to suspend Israel. The “Show Israeli Genocide the Red Card” movement launched in May 2024 and has advocated for boycotting Israel not only from sports but also culturally, such as canceling events for musicians in support of Israel.
In December 2024, Puma ended its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA), the governing body of football in Israel and a member of FIFA, following a five-year-long campaign led by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
“All the governments and the sports bodies, they all support Israel,” Shepherd said. “So we believe in people power and one of the ways that people have power is through fans of football and culture, and from withdrawing their support for certain teams.”
The Red Card movement stretches beyond a decade, sweeping Europe in 2013 with calls to boycott Israel during the UEFA championship. During this time, Ahed and Mohammed Tamimi, who both gained international recognition for standing up to Israeli soldiers in 2017, began waving red cards at demonstrations against Israeli occupation.
Palestinians have protested Israel’s @FIFAcom membership for years.
Here are freedom fighters Ahed and Mohammed Tamimi showing Israel the red card in 2013 & 2015.
Both famously stood up to IOF after their cousin was shot in head and other brother arrested in 2017. pic.twitter.com/S3lvS16ana
— Scottish Sport for Palestine (@ScotSport4Pal) March 1, 2025
In March 2015, the Palestine Football Association (PFA), the governing body of football in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) and member of FIFA, submitted a request to FIFA to suspend the IFA from all international games over alleged violations of FIFA’s statutes, explicitly accusing IFA of racial discrimination, that Israel was restricting the movement of players and equipment in and out of the oPt, and that five Israeli teams were playing on occupied territory. Currently, the IFA has six clubs located in Israeli settlements, two with registered offices in settlements, and one that plays occasional home games in a settlement.
The PFA withdrew its proposal two months later, in May 2015, after Israel launched a lobbying campaign against the move and faced internal pressure to drop the suspension. However, the football association took up its case again in March 2017, submitting a motion to ban the IFA from playing in the occupied West Bank. In October of the same year, the FIFA leadership decided against sanctioning the IFA and closed the matter.
“Given that the final status of the West Bank territories is the concern of the competent international public law authorities, the FIFA Council agrees that FIFA, in line with the general principle established in its Statutes, must remain neutral with regard to political matters,” the FIFA council said in a statement at the time. “Therefore, the FIFA Council has decided to refrain from imposing any sanctions or other measures.”
“FIFA may be reluctant to sanction the IFA because it could set a precedent for other political and human rights cases in sports governance,” Dima Yousef, the PFA’s spokesperson, told MintPress News.
In May 2024, the PFA presented arguments to sanction the IFA again, citing violations of international law, particularly concerning Israel’s war on Gaza, the continued inclusion of Israeli teams based in settlements, and the IFA’s failure to address racial discrimination. FIFA deferred issuing a ruling on the ban until May 2025, having already postponed its decision three times — first in July, then in August, and again in October 2024.
“This is classic FIFA,” Nick McGeehan, director of FairSquare, a non-profit that submitted research findings to FIFA in support of an IFA suspension, told MintPress News of the organization’s decision-making. “They’ll never actually say anything, and they’ll just draw an issue out for as long as possible in the hope that people forget about it.”
Instead of granting a decision, FIFA’s leadership tasked its Disciplinary Committee with investigating the PFA’s allegations and ordered its Governance, Audit, and Compliance Committee to probe the matter and advise the council regarding Israeli teams playing in settlements.
“FIFA referred the legal case to its judicial bodies, creating a lengthy process rather than taking immediate action,” Yousef said. “This bureaucratic stalling tactic allows FIFA to avoid making a politically sensitive decision in the short term.”
Dr. Katarina Pijetlovic, a sports lawyer, noted on X that FIFA’s continued deference makes it complicit in Israeli crimes.
“FIFA allowed Israel FA to continue using the Palestinian territory (West Bank & East J.) as their own territory, and to use football under its umbrella as an instrument of colonial expansion,” Pijetlovic wrote. “FIFA contributes to human rights abuses & facilitates illegal occupation and colonialism.”
Palestinian sports under attack
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 700 Palestinian athletes in the besieged Gaza Strip, including 95 children, throughout its 18-month-long assault, as of April 2025, on the enclave, according to the Palestinian Sports Media Association (PSMA).
“The number of martyred Palestinian athletes continues to rise, with entire teams wiped out, and others injured or missing, unable to play again due to the permanent damage caused by airstrikes and sniper attacks,” Yousef said.
According to the PSMA, Israeli rocket fire has wholly or partially destroyed more than 270 sports facilities in Gaza, including the historic Al-Yarmouk Stadium, which Israeli forces turned into a detention and interrogation camp for Palestinians in Gaza. Some smaller facilities are now serving as field hospitals or mass graves.
“Several stadiums, which once hosted major sporting events, are now being used as camps for displaced Palestinians who have lost their homes due to relentless bombardment,” Yousef said.
Israeli attacks aren’t limited to Gaza or the current assault on the besieged enclave. For instance, the Palestinian Amputee Football Association was established in Gaza in 2018 after many Gazan athletes lost limbs due to Israeli bombardment or sniper fire at the Great March of Return, demonstrations held at the border with Israel in 2018-2019 demanding Palestinian refugees’ right of return.
The majority of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees or descendants of the 1947-1948 Zionist expulsion campaign of Palestinians (known as the Nakba or “catastrophe” in Arabic) prior to and after the creation of the Israeli state in May 1948. Most of Gaza’s refugee population originates from villages within an 18-25 mile radius of the Strip.
In the West Bank, Israel, too, has killed Palestinian athletes and destroyed stadiums over the last year. More broadly, Israeli authorities regularly restrict the movement of athletes for matches within the West Bank, to and from Gaza, and outside Palestine through checkpoints and the denial of permits.
“The targeting is not exclusive to Gaza; we have documented several invasions of stadiums in Palestinian territories, such as Al Thahereyyah, Sinjil, and the partial destruction of Jenin Stadium in the West Bank,” Yousef said.
According to Mondoweiss, since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed 12 players in the West Bank and arrested 17, while at least 21 stadiums in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem are now no longer operational.
“Israel has killed a generation of footballers who might have played for our national team,” Muhammad Rashid, the Palestine national team captain, told Mondoweiss. In the last year, Israeli forces have repeatedly raided refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, Tubas, and Qabatiya — where many star Palestinian soccer players are from.
Israel’s recent attacks on Palestinian sports infrastructure and athletes in the West Bank and Gaza have been described as “sporticide.”
Double standards
Within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, UEFA and FIFA kicked Russia out, not on the grounds of morality but instead because Poland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic refused to play Russia.
“There was this clamor for action against Russia,” McGeehan said. “FIFA did say, ‘[you’re] out,’…but it was based on forced measure [since] nobody will play Russia.”
“It was clearly a decision that was motivated by the political will of powerful Western states,” McGeehan added.
FIFA’s hypocrisy on Israel is glaring. In 1961, the organization banned South Africa for 30 years over its apartheid regime. Both FIFA and UEFA banned Yugoslavia from playing in the 1992 European Cup and the 1994 World Cup after the UN sanctioned it over the government’s aggression in the Balkans. Yet with Israeli officials, including the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court, and even the UN demanding FIFA respect international law following the International Court of Justice’s 2024 ruling deeming Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal, FIFA hasn’t taken action.
“FIFA banned Russia within a couple of days of them attacking Ukraine,” Shepherd said. “There have been decades of this apartheid and 18 months of genocide, and yet Israelis are still free to do what they want around the world and have this platform.”
While the Red Card movement aims to get Israel suspended like Russia, McGeehan is skeptical that this goal can be achieved.
“What you’re seeing are certain groups of supporters — politically engaged supporters — taking issue. FIFA tends not to respond to stuff like that. They’re not that bothered about what supporters say,” McGeehan said.
Despite Iceland expressing concerns over playing Israel ahead of last year’s European Qualifiers for the UEFA Championship, the team ultimately faced off against Israel. Compared to Russia, European soccer teams appear less adamant in their opposition to Israel. This lack of conviction may be what keeps Israel playing regardless of the growing success of the Red Card movement.
“The political pressure that was placed on Russia has never been applied by states to the same extent on Israel,” McGeehan said. “The political pressure that comes from states not to do anything that would then be seen as overly challenging to Israel is the prevailing force.”
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Feature photo | A woman holds a symbolic red card against Israel before the World Cup Group G qualifying soccer match between Spain and Israel at El Molinon Stadium, northern Spain. Alvaro Barrientos | AP
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.
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