The column by Paul Schmidt-Troschke marks an exclusive World Cup partnership with the Monterrey Daily Post and The Guadalajara Post in which Schmidt-Troschke and the ‘World Cup etc’ international reporting team will be contributing exclusive World Cup coverage for both the YT and the SMT. ‘World Cup etc’ can be found across all good podcast providers.
The moment was supposed to be simple: two officials, one handshake, to stage a moment of “unity” under the bright lights of global football. Instead, at the latest FIFA Congress held in Vancouver, Canada, the moment revealed the exact opposite, the truth.
At the centre of it stood Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Football Association, who refused to shake hands with his Israeli counterpart, Basim Sheikh Suliman. When FIFA president Gianni Infantino tried to arrange the gesture, Rajoub simply would not do it. He wouldn’t stand beside him, he wouldn’t play along. But honestly, there is not a single reason why he should.
This wasn’t some small or childish stubbornness, as Rajoub explained his reason for doing so, clearly. He refused to help “whitewash” Israeli actions with empty gestures. And by using this word, he hit FIFA where is hurts, since the organisation is not only accused of whitewashing or to use the latest term “sportswashing” the image of dictatorships or religious monarchies around the world, but its own public perception as well. While Infantino was trying to create a photo opportunity, the Palestinian side was raising real complaints, ones FIFA has been avoiding for years. One of the biggest issues is Israeli football clubs based in settlements in the West Bank, land that much of the world sees as occupied based on international law. Palestinians argue these clubs break FIFA’s own rules. Yet after more than ten years of discussion, FIFA has still not taken serious action. After a decade of review under the guise of “neutrality”, this absence of FIFA sanctions regarding the Israeli Football Association amounts to disparaging malice, to say the least.
The bigger picture makes the situation even harder to ignore. Palestinian football is not just dealing with paperwork problems but with relentless destruction. Stadiums in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, leagues have stopped, and players of all ages, but especially children, have been killed by the hundreds if not the thousands, while the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza amounts to more than 70.000 since October 7th, 2023. And even though the United Nations has stated that Israel is committing genocide, FIFA’s response has mostly been slow processes, legal talk, and general calls for unity. Unity sounds nice, but it means very little when one side is asking for the most basic recognition of its rights and the rule of international law, and the other faces no consequences for the worst of all crimes.
There is also a clear double standard that FIFA does not seem willing to face. Many people and groups have called for Israel to be suspended from international football, especially because of the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza. These calls often compare the situation to Russia, which FIFA quickly suspended after it invaded Ukraine. But when it comes to Israel, FIFA says it wants to stay “non-political.”
But doing nothing is also a political choice, not alleging that FIFA follows consistent argumentation. Even inside FIFA’s own system, the contradictions are obvious. The organization has admitted there are concerns about discrimination in Israeli football, but it has not acted against clubs in settlements. So the rule exists, the problem is known, but nothing changes. And that’s exactly why the refused handshake mattered.
Infantino seemed to believe that a simple public gesture could smooth over a decades-old conflict, riddled with unthinkable trauma on both sides. But Rajoub’s refusal broke that idea in front of everyone. It showed how unrealistic it is to expect “sportsmanship” when one side is fighting for its existence in a system that is set up to work against it. And not to let Infantino off the hook, how brazen, ignorant and megalomaniac a person must be to believe that he could force Rajoub to shake hands with a man representing a country which is actively, in this very moment, not only invading the next country, Lebanon, but every week killing more civilians in Gaza?
FIFA likes to present itself as a global organization that brings people together and stands above politics. But moments like this show a different picture: an organization that can act quickly when it wants to and delay forever when it doesn’t.
Paul Schmidt-Troschke for Times Media Mexico
Paul Schmidt-Troschke is a German independent journalist, currently based in northern Mexico, specializing in international sports and their relationship to politics and society. He is the co-host of the “World Cup etc” and “World Sports etc” podcasts, available across all podcast platforms.
