As Israel prepares to play 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, its soccer teams are facing calls to be banned from all competitions.
Soccer fans around the world have been chanting, unfurling banners and holding red placards demanding FIFA and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) “Show Israel the Red Card.”
“It’s amazing that it’s reaching this far,” Palestinian content creator Ahmed Bdair told CBC News. “All this kind of stuff has, honestly, pleasantly surprised me.”
The campaign started on Feb. 12 during a Champions League game in Scotland. Fans of Celtic FC expressed support for Palestinians and called on FIFA and UEFA to “show Israel the red card.”
According to the organizers, the protest was motivated by Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
“Israel is committing genocide and ethnic cleansing; it is practicing apartheid; and it is illegally occupying Palestinian territory. All of this is in breach of international law,” the Green Brigades, Celtic’s ultras fan group, said in a leaflet prior to the match.
“We call on football fans around the world who value life, humanity, dignity, freedom, peace and justice to be courageous and to use your platform to stand against the crimes of Israel and stand with Palestine,” the group continued.
The campaign has since spread to countries like Italy, Spain, Belgium, Malaysia, Tunisia, Brazil and Chile, among others.
FIFA and UEFA did not respond to CBC’s repeated requests for a comment.
The protests come after Israel has killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza in their post-Oct. 7 operations, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Among the Gaza death toll are at least 734 Palestinian athletes and scouts, including 382 soccer players, according to the Palestinian Football Association (PFA). The Israeli military says it has killed at least 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel where around 1,200 were killed and another 250 were taken hostage according to Israeli tallies.
We won’t be deterred: Israeli soccer body
In a statement to CBC News, the Israel Football Association (IFA) said its teams and athletes will not be deterred from participating in global sports events.
“We encounter quite a few incidents of ignorance, self-righteousness, and abysmal hatred that ostensibly express protest. The facts and reality are well known to us and to many others, and no stupid sign will change them,” the IFA said in its email.
This is not the first time Israel has faced scrutiny in the sports world since Oct. 7.
Ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, protestors — including some French lawmakers and an MP — called on the International Olympic Committee to ban Israel from the Games.
That same year, 12 Middle Eastern soccer associations — fronted by the president of the West Asian Football Federation, Prince Ali bin Al Hussein, the half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah II — also called on FIFA to ban Israel from its competitions.
This was followed by the PFA requesting FIFA suspend Israel after claiming that the IFA broke FIFA’s discrimination rules. FIFA’s council ordered an independent legal analysis and opened a discrimination investigation, but delayed deciding on suspending Israel.
The conflict has led to tensions at soccer matches involving Israeli teams. On Nov. 6 and 7, 2024, fans of local Dutch club AFC Ajax and visiting Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv clashed in Amsterdam, resulting in five hospitalizations and dozens of arrests.
Soccer journalist Ronan Murphy says the protests could make some Israeli teams and fans feel unsafe attending matches.
“I think there’s always going to be that tension around visiting fans or teams playing Israeli clubs and Israel national football team playing in away matches,” he told CBC News.
“It might get to the stage where the fans will not travel for fear of violence, or the locals will not want the Israeli fans to come for fear of violence themselves.”
Awareness is key for campaign
FIFA and UEFA haven’t publicly commented on the “Show Israel the red card” campaign, which doesn’t surprise Murphy.
“No matter what they say, it’s going to be an unpopular decision. It’s impossible for an organization like that to please everybody,” he said.
Soccer content creator Bdair said he would like to see Israeli teams ostracized in a similar way to Russia, which was blanket banned by FIFA and UEFA shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.
“We’ve seen how much it can damage a certain country,” said Bdair, who is a well-known AC Milan fan on X. “We no longer see Russia at the World Cup, we don’t see Russia in the European competitions, we barely talk about the Russian league.”
Although Bdair says he doesn’t believes a similar blanket ban on Israel is likely, he says it’s important to highlight the “hypocrisy” that only Russia has been banned.
He also says the awareness the campaign has put on the plight of Palestinians is more important than a suspension of Israeli teams.
“What does matter to me is that the people know, and that’s what these protests are more about,” he said.
