Olympics and FIFA: Ban Israel from international sports now
Wire desk byline Sourced from Xinhua, Dawn, Arab News, Anadolu and Minute Mirror. Translated and abridged by the GSRRA Desk.
Israel’s military is gearing up to invade Rafah where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering.
Despite the ongoing genocide, Israel’s sports teams continue to compete internationally.
Russia was threatened with bans from international sports immediately after invading Ukraine, and eventually banned from the 2024 Olympics.
Israel’s football team is set to compete in major European matches in weeks and with the Olympics coming up in July, now is the time for sporting federations to join international committees and add the needed pressure to stop Israel’s violence.
Call on the Olympics, all major football federations, and other sports to ban Israel until it stops the genocide of Palestinians.
The Olympics spirit is meant “to build a peaceful and better world…”
Yet, the Olympics, and all other sporting federations, continues to allow a country which has undermined this principle – Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October, including 1,000 athletes. This includes Abu al-Abed, Palestine’s Olympic Football coach.
This is why over 300 sports teams in Palestine have joined in this call. Let’s stand with them and show overwhelming global support to ban Israel from these games.
Call on the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, and UEFA to ban Israel from competition now.
After Israel’s 9-day siege on Gaza in 2021, 140,000 Ekō members like you called one of the world’s biggest sports brands, PUMA, to drop its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association. We met with PUMA’s CEO to deliver our message. And thanks to our collective pressure, and the tireless work of Palestinian solidarity activists over the years, PUMA quietly ended its relationship with Israel’s Football Federation last year, months after Israel’s current invasion.
So we know we can use sports to push for change in Israel, but only if we speak out now.
More information
Palestine Olympic Football Team Coach Killed by Israel in Gaza – Over 1,000 Athletes Killed so far
Palestine Chronicles. 7 January 2024.
These are the sports that Russia has been suspended from
CNN. 7 March 2022.
Israel Not Complying with World Court Order in Genocide Case
Human Rights Watch. 26 February 2024.
Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians, UN rights expert says
The Guardian. 27 February 2024.
Reference Link:- https://actions.eko.org/a/olympics-and-fifa-ban-israel-from-international-sports-now-1-0
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
