FIFA Council decides to further investigate future participation of the Israel Football Association after Palestinian request
By Amanda Davies, Aleks Klosok and Thomas Schlachter, CNN
(CNN) — FIFA, football’s governing body, have announced a plan to address a Palestinian request to ban Israel from world football during a meeting held at their headquarters in Zurich on Thursday.
“The FIFA Council has implemented due diligence on this very sensitive matter and, based on a thorough assessment, we have followed the advice of the independent experts,” Gianni Infantino, FIFA President said in a statement following Thursday’s decision.
“The ongoing violence in the region confirms that, above all considerations, and as stated at the 74th FIFA Congress, we need peace. As we remain extremely shocked by what is happening, and our thoughts are with those who are suffering, we urge all parties to restore peace to the region with immediate effect.”
CNN has reached out to both the Palestine Football Association (PFA) and the Israel Football Association (IFA) for comment on the decision.
The PFA called for FIFA to ban the IFA, its national teams and club teams earlier this year. The original PFA motion was tabled in April before being raised at FIFA’s Congress in May with a decision expected in July.
The timeframe for a decision was then delayed multiple times before Thursday’s announcement. FIFA did not disclose when it would announce results of the investigation.
The PFA argued that the IFA should be banned from world football because of the “violation of international law through the occupation of the Gaza Strip; Racism and discrimination against Palestinian athletes in two Israeli clubs and violation of FIFA statutes through the league participation of five Israeli clubs from illegal settlements on Palestinian territory.”
These claims have been rejected by the IFA.
FIFA charged an independent panel to pull together evidence which was presented on Thursday to the 37 members of the FIFA council.
The FIFA council said it adopted two conclusions and recommendations following today’s hearing.
“The FIFA Disciplinary Committee will be mandated to initiate an investigation into the alleged offence of discrimination raised by the Palestine Football Association,” the outcome read.
“The FIFA Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee will be entrusted with the mission to investigate – and subsequently advise the FIFA Council on – the participation in Israeli competitions of Israeli football teams allegedly based in the territory of Palestine.”
Both men’s national teams are in action next week. Palestine plays Iraq in World Cup qualifying on October 10 and Israel plays France in the Nations League on the same day.
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