Palestinian Football Body Appeals FIFA Israel No-Sanctions Decision To Court

ISTANBUL, April 30 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- The Palestine Football Association (PFA) has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against a decision by the governing body FIFA not to sanction Israel over clubs based in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Anadolu Ajansi (AA) reported.

“Since we have exhausted every legal venue possible at FIFA, we’ll still go by the rules, go by the book, and appeal that decision because we think it’s very unjust and doesn’t serve justice,” PFA vice president Susan Shalabi said Wednesday after the Asian Football Confederation congress in Vancouver, Canada.

She added that FIFA’s council had effectively declined to act on the issue after years of deliberations.

“The council decided after 15 years of deliberations on this issue not to decide,” she lamented.

Shalabi said the association would now pursue the case at CAS through the full legal process.

“The only course of action that we have is to go to CAS and to appeal that; we will go through the whole process until we are able to achieve justice,” she added.

The international community and the UN consider the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, an occupied Palestinian territory and view Israeli settlements there as illegal under international law.

In March, FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee found the Israel Football Association (IFA) guilty of multiple “grave and systemic” discrimination violations but stopped short of imposing major sanctions.

The committee said the FIFA failed to act against racism, tolerated politicised and militaristic messaging, and allowed the exclusion of Palestinians from football infrastructure in settlements in the occupied West Bank. It described the conduct as “institutional complicity” in a system of segregation.

The committee also declined to pursue a request by the Palestinian Football Association to bar Israeli clubs based in occupied territory from international competitions, saying the matter falls outside its jurisdiction.

-- BERNAMA-ANADOLU