GENEVA (AP) — Facing growing global calls to suspend Israeli teams from soccer, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said on Thursday the governing body must promote peace and unity and could not solve political issues.
In a febrile period for soccer politics, Infantino led a meeting of FIFA’s ruling council in Zurich which did not have Israel formally on the agenda before 2026 World Cup qualifying games resume next week.
He later met privately at FIFA headquarters with the leader of the Palestinian soccer federation, Jibril Rajoub, and praised his organization “for their resilience at this time.”
The strongest push against Israeli teams by European soccer leaders during the two-year conflict in Gaza was paused after a peace proposal on Monday in the White House by U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Infantino stressed to his 37-member council “the importance of promoting peace and unity, particularly in the context of the ongoing situation in Gaza,” FIFA said in a news release that did not refer directly to Israel.
“FIFA cannot solve geopolitical problems," Infantino said in the statement, “but it can and must promote football around the world by harnessing its unifying, educational, cultural and humanitarian values.”
FIFA did not schedule a news conference and Infantino was not made available for interviews.
The Israel men’s team should now travel to play World Cup qualifiers against Norway in Oslo on Oct. 11 and Italy in Udine three days later.
Norway was among European soccer federations urging UEFA to call a vote of its executive committee ahead of the FIFA meeting in Zurich on suspending Israeli teams from international competitions. Turkey's soccer body directly called on UEFA and FIFA to suspend Israel.
Any vote of the 20-member UEFA panel seemed likely to pass, people familiar with the discussions told The Associated Press, despite opposition from some members including Israel and Germany.
FIFA and Infantino — who has built close ties to Trump ahead of the U.S. co-hosting the World Cup next year with Canada and Mexico — were never likely to follow any UEFA vote. That prospect became even more distant last week when the U.S. State Department said it would work to protect Israel’s status in soccer.
Qatar's role
The Trump-Netanyahu peace proposal on Monday also was quickly welcomed by governments in the Middle East including Qatar, a key supporter of the Palestinian people. Qatar's prime minister received an apology from Netanyahu, by telephone from the White House, for a Sept. 9 military strike on Doha that targeted Hamas officials.
Qatar also has close commercial and sports political ties to UEFA, whose President Aleksander Ceferin attended the FIFA meeting Thursday. Also there was Nasser al-Khelaifi, the influential head of the 700-member European Club Association network of teams and president of Paris Saint-Germain, the Qatar-owned Champions League titleholder. Al-Khelaifi also is a member of Qatar’s government.
FIFA-Palestinians meeting
Before going to FIFA, Rajoub had been in Switzerland and met Wednesday with International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry in Lausanne.
A post on Infantino's Instagram account said he and Rajoub met to “discuss the ongoing situation in the Middle East region.”
There was no mention of progress at FIFA in two investigations it set up last year after a formal request by the Palestinian soccer body to suspend Israel.
FIFA requested a disciplinary investigation into possible discrimination by the Israeli soccer federation and a separate governance panel is looking into “the participation in Israeli competitions of Israeli football teams allegedly based in the territory of Palestine.” FIFA has given no timetable for the two cases to be resolved.
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