GENEVA (AP) — European soccer body UEFA is moving toward a vote to suspend its member federation Israel over the war in Gaza, people familiar with the proposal told The Associated Press on Thursday.
A majority of UEFA’s 20-member executive committee is expected to support any vote in favor of suspending Israeli teams from international play, two sources told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The move comes two weeks before the Israel men’s team is due to resume its 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign with away games against Norway and Italy.
It is unclear whether world soccer body FIFA will support excluding Israel given the close relations between FIFA’s leader, Gianni Infantino, and President Donald Trump.
The Trump administration’s support to secure the World Cup, and process visas for players, officials and potentially hundreds of thousands of visiting fans, is seen as key to FIFA delivering a successful tournament in the U.S., Canada and Mexico next year.
FIFA’s ruling council is scheduled to meet in Zurich next week. The 37-member council includes eight from UEFA.
Calls to exclude Israel from soccer and other sports have increased in recent weeks amid an outcry over the humanitarian toll of its military campaign in Gaza. Last week Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Israel should be banned from international sports events just like Russia, which was sidelined after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
UEFA and its president Aleksander Ceferin signaled a tougher view on Israel last month when banners saying “Stop Killing Children. Stop Killing Civilians” were placed on the field in front of the Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham teams ahead of the Super Cup game in Udine, Italy.
Israel’s sports and culture minister, Miki Zohar, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel’s soccer federation, Moshe Zuares, have been working “intensively behind the scenes” to block efforts to oust Israel from UEFA, Zohar’s office said Thursday. “The right step now is to act responsibly with the professionals and not to make statements, and this is how all the parties involved in the efforts are acting. We will address this later.”
Critics of Israel’s response since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas provoked the war have consistently pointed to Russia being suspended by FIFA and UEFA within days of the full military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Last week, Israel was accused of committing genocide in Gaza by an inquiry commission commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The Russia ban also was driven by a swath of UEFA member federations refusing to play scheduled games against Russian opponents, including Poland which had been due to go to Moscow for a 2022 World Cup qualifying playoff. FIFA and UEFA later argued when winning at a Russian appeal against the ban that they could not risk chaos in their own competitions, including the World Cup.
No national or club team in Europe has so far refused to play an Israeli opponent, though soccer leaders in Norway and Italy have publicly expressed their unease in recent weeks.
The Norwegian soccer federation also pledged to give its profits from ticket sales for the Oct. 11 game in Oslo to humanitarian work in Gaza by Doctors Without Borders.
Both Italy’s Gabriele Gravina and Lise Klaveness of Norway are elected members of the UEFA executive committee which could vote on suspending Israel. Zuares, the Israeli soccer federation president, is also on the panel.
___ Associated Press correspondent Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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