Infantino peace making falls embarrassingly flat as Palestine’s Rajoub refuses to be coerced into Israeli handshake
By Paul Nicholson and Samindra Kunti in Vancouver
April 30 – An attempt by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to stage a photo-opportunity handshake between Palestinian FA president Jibril Rajoub and Israeli FA vice president Basim Sheik Suliman spectacularly backfired at the FIFA Congress in Vancouver, Canada.
A congress that was structured to close with Infantino announcing his candidacy to run for another four years in front of his fawning supporters, ended up with a muted response to his announcement as more than 700 delegates were left wondering how Infantino could be so out of sync with his membership in the room.
Infantino’s desperate attempt to be the great peacemaker and statesman par excellence could not have fallen flatter on its face as the embarrassed silence proved deafening.
The drama began towards the end of FIFA’s 76th Annual Congress with an agenda item covering the Palestine complaint first raised in 2013 that Israeli teams, under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Football Association (IFA), play matches in settlements in occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank. In March this year, FIFA decided not to take any specific measures against the IFA following a complaint filed by the PFA in 2024.
Infantino opened the agenda item with the affirmation that “Palestine has the same rights as all associations around the world. You are part of the FIFA family and always will be.”
He then handed on to his general secretary Matthias Grafstrom to detail the case and the separate sanctions against the Israeli FA for the complaint of racism and discrimination in Israeli football. Grafstrom was selective in his report, failing to mention either Israel or Beitar Jerusalem directly by name, or the CHF150,000 sanction issued for racism in Israeli football.
Following the addresses by Rajoub and Suliman, Infantino invited Rajoub back to the stage for the handshake photo-op.
Instead of acquiescing, Rajoub refused to be drawn into the handshake, berating Infantino and shouting that “we are suffering” after he had once again highlighted the plight of the Palestinians and demanded FIFA to act.
Infantino persisted in trying to get Rajoub to shake hands but the Palestinian would not backdown on principle.
Infantino, now stuck in the middle of a tense stand-off he had created, was forced to lamely promise that they will work together with both Israel and Palestine.
“We will work together, president Rajoub, vice-president Suliman. Let’s work together to give hope to the children. These are complex matters,” he said as attempted to save face.
“How can I shake hands or take a picture with such a man?” Rajoub told the press immediately after the FIFA Congress, referring to Suliman.
Rajoub later told Insideworldfootball that he would have shaken hands with the Israeli if he had committed to finding a solution to the Palestinian complaint. Instead he said Suliman refused to do that, and had only attempted to justify the Israeli actions and failed to even acknowledge the issues or the complaint.
“I think Gianni has the right to try to build bridges. He has the right to try to bring people together. But he doesn’t know the deep suffering of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian sports family,” said Rajoub.
In his speech to the Congress, Rajoub launched a powerful attack on the IFA and FIFA’s abject failure to punish the Israelis for their repeated violation of FIFA’s own rules.
“The record is no longer empty,” said Rajoub. “The facts are no longer theoretical. FIFA Disciplinary Committee has found grave violations: breaches of the FIFA Disciplinary Code and conduct inconsistent with its obligations of non-discrimination, equal treatment, human rights, political neutrality, and good governance. It described this as systemic failure and institutional complicity in discrimination, striking at the core of FIFA’s mission and requiring severe, exemplary sanctions. Those are not our words. They are FIFA’s disciplinary findings,” said Rajoub.
“If FIFA’s values mean anything, they must mean something when applying them is difficult. If territorial integrity protects every member association, it must also protect the Palestine Football Association,” Rajoub continued.
“We do not ask FIFA to solve a political conflict. We ask FIFA to govern football.
“We do not ask FIFA to decide borders. We ask FIFA to apply its own provisions on where a member association may organize football, and where it may not. And it’s simple – associations may organize football on the territory of their own country. The West Bank (including East Jerusalem) is not a territory of Israel according to every single piece of international law. It is not a disputed territory. The only country that officially disputes the status of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem is the current Israeli government.”
In his speech, Suliman, speaking in Hebrew and Arabic, ignored the accusations of the Palestinian football president, and instead focussed on highlighting individual examples of Arabs and Israelis playing football together.
“We believe in participation and equality and the ability to live together side by side through football because we believe football can be unifying,” said Suliman.
Perhaps the Israelis really do believe this, but just not in Palestine if the evidence is to be believed, and no-one is really disputing it.
Last week, the PFA appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against FIFA’s decision not to sanction Israel over clubs based in West Bank settlements.
On paper it looks like a case where FIFA has no wriggle room to escape via a technicality, where so many cases at CAS fail. And it certainly won’t be settled by a pretend handshake.
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