The Racist Cloud Overshadowing the European U21 Tournament
Palestinians
in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus demonstrate in solidarity with
Palestinian hunger striker Mahmoud Sarsak. Sarsak, a footballer with
the Palestinian national team, refused food for nearly three months
before Israel agreed to release him when his current detention orders
expire. (Ahmad Al-Bazz / ActiveStills)
Football is a global game. It brings joy to billions around the world, and such is its popularity and power that sometimes it can have a morality of its own.
In the modern game especially, obscene amounts of money are thrown around from club to club. Just think how many children your teams record signing could have liberated from hunger. In a financially unequal world, football simply can not and will not sustain this level of spending for much longer. The governing bodies know this yet still persist in letting anyone with the ability to write blank cheques to govern the way the game is played. Sometimes, though, they just rub it in your face.
Such as with UEFA’s staggering decision to award Israel this year’s UEFA Under-21 European Championship. It seems as though all of the recent stances that have been taken to combat racism – such as Kevin-Prince Boateng being called in to advise FIFA on how to tackle the issue, the hard work put in to schemes such as Football Against Racism in Europe, even the recent FIFA agreements reached in Mauritius on how to tackle impunity for racists, have all been nothing but hollow, empty rhetoric.
At that FIFA Congress in Mauritius, Sepp Blatter said that he would stamp out ‘the politics of hate – racism, ignorance, discrimination, intolerance, small minded prejudice. That uncivilised, immoral and self-destructive force that we all detest’.
If they truly detest all of those things, how can FIFA and UEFA justify handing this tournament to an institutionally racist state, one in which the most severe form of racism, Apartheid, is practiced day in, day out? Israel limits access to water, health services and education to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been classified as illegal under international law, yet still remain.
Even in football matters, Palestinians are made to suffer. UEFA is supporting a football association which prevents another football association from competing. Palestinian national team players are frequently refused access to leave Israel – so they can’t play away matches – and as with all Palestinians, are frequently arrested and can be held indefinitely in prison without charge.
Such was the case of Mahmoud Sarsak, who in 2009 was arrested without evidence by Israeli forces. Sarsak was held for three years without justification until he led a hunger strike campaign that ended in 2012 with his release, only after an international outcry from the likes of Amnesty International and FIFPro. Two of his fellow former Palestinian professionals, Omar Abu Rouis and Mohammed Nimr, remain held in Israeli prison for ‘administrative purposes’.
Today, Sarsak is in the UK as part of a tour of Europe which has seen him speak at the European Parliament, and on the eve of the Champions League final on the 24th of May, at UEFA’s annual congress, he protested with the campaign groups Red Card Israeli Racism and Football Beyond Borders, delivering a petition to Michel Platini calling for the tournament to be cancelled or moved.
Once again, Sarsak’s stance is being backed up by eminent figures. A letter published in the Guardian calling for the cancellation or relocation of the tournament was signed by, amongst others, legendary anti-Apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former Spurs and West Ham striker Frédéric Kanouté.
The football authorities, clearly worried by the rising level of public opinion against the tournament, have tried to hide any notion of protest in the sleaziest of ways. Our own FA has been one of the worst exponents of this. At an England u21s friendly match against Romania at Adams Park in the build-up to the tournament, in which Wilfried Zaha shone and scored his first U21s goal, included in the matchday programme was a helpful map of Israel telling fans where each of England’s games would be played.This map, however, clearly showed just how intent on tackling racism our FA is – it depicted the entire Palestinian territories as belonging to Israel!
The FA match programme failed to recognise the existence of Palestine
Clearly, we are seeing football used as a political tool for all the wrong reasons. Indeed, the Israeli FA’s chief Avi Luzon was rubbing his hands with glee earlier this week when he said ‘I believe that this tournament will be our entry ticket into the European elite and that we will host many more top matches and tournaments here’. Michel Platini has said that Israel’s FA cannot be held ‘responsible for the political situation in the region or for legal procedures in place in the country’, when defending the event. Just whom, aside from the Israeli state themselves, fund and manage the Israeli FA, Monsieur Platini?
It is too late to stop the tournament from taking place on Israeli soil now, but football’s future cannot belong in the hands of any organisation linked to the Israeli government if it is to in any way overcome cancers such as racism and discrimination. Of course, Israel will lay down the red carpet for its esteemed European guests, but organisations fighting injustice and for Palestinian independence will continue to show what really goes on behind the cosy corporate confines of this tournament.
So as you turn the TV on to watch UEFA Under-21 European Championship Israel 2013 get under way tonight, just think of how it would be if Lewis Holtby, Wilfried Zaha, Isco or any of the teams’ other stars were imprisoned unjustly and kept in detention on made-up charges.
That’s how Israel normally deals with footballers they see crossing their borders.
Tags: European U21 Championship, Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE), Football Beyond Borders, Mahmoud Sarsak, Red Card Israel Apartheid, RESPECT, The FA, uefa
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