FIFA’s worst governance week in years just gained a new front. The Palestine Football Association issued a statement on Monday accusing the world body of “double standards” in its handling of Israel and warning that silence “when a genocide is being committed live, amounts to complicity”.

The PFA says more than 1,013 footballers, coaches, referees, officials and members of the football family have been killed during the war in Gaza, and that stadiums, training grounds and football infrastructure have been systematically destroyed.

It says formal complaints raised for more than fifteen years about Israeli clubs based in West Bank settlements remain unresolved.

Fifteen years of complaints, one fine

FIFA fined the Israel Football Association 150,000 Swiss francs (about $190,700) on 19 March for “multiple breaches” of its anti-discrimination obligations, after finding that the IFA had failed to take meaningful action against racism at Israeli club Beitar.

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On the wider dispute FIFA declined to sanction Israel, saying “the final legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter under public international law”.

Palestine took the case to sport’s highest tribunal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), lodging an appeal on 20 April against FIFA’s refusal to move on the settlement clubs.

“Since we have exhausted every legal venue possible at FIFA, we’ll still go by the rules, go by the book, and we’ll appeal that decision because we think it’s very unjust,” PFA vice president Susan Shalabi told Middle East Eye.

‘Institutional courage’

Monday’s statement pushes the argument further.

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The PFA questioned whether FIFA “still possesses the institutional courage to uphold its own Statutes equally, without hesitation and without political submission”, and said years of delay had allowed “facts on the ground to become further entrenched”.

“Our concern is not who leads FIFA. Our concern is whether FIFA is once again prepared to lead by principle,” the statement said.

The intervention lands with FIFA’s leadership already under siege. On Saturday, UEFA publicly declared that “the current FIFA leadership” had “lost UEFA’s confidence” following Infantino’s abandoned plan to spin off FIFA’s commercial businesses – including men’s and women’s World Cups – into a $20 billion subsidiary part-owned by private investors.

CONCACAF said a “comprehensive reckoning” with the presidency was “imperative”, while UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin said “no option should be off the table”. FIFA senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro resigned on Friday.

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Rajoub still wants the IFA expelled

The CAS appeal remains pending. Palestine’s demand for the IFA to be expelled from international football, pressed at successive FIFA congresses by PFA president Jibril Rajoub, is unchanged.

Monday’s statement said “every postponed decision has allowed the situation on the ground to deteriorate while confidence in FIFA’s governance has steadily eroded”.

FIFA has not publicly responded.

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