FIFA Proposes Opening Match Between Israel and Palestine for Youth Tournament

FIFA has proposed a match between Israel and Palestine as the opener for a youth tournament set to begin in the U.S. in September in the international body’s latest reactionary move.

The tournament will be for soccer players aged 15 and under, and is open to all of FIFA’s member states. This includes Russia, which has been banned from FIFA tournaments since the start of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But FIFA wants the opening game to feature Palestinian and Israeli youth soccer teams in its latest attempt to “promote peace.”

Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s president who has curried favor with Trump since 2018 and awarded Trump the first “FIFA Peace Prize” in 2025, has attempted to push the Palestinian and Israeli football associations together.

In April, Infantino attempted to persuade Palestinian and Israeli delegates at the FIFA congress in Vancouver to shake hands and pose together for a photo. Jibril Rajoub, the Palestinian Football Association’s president, refused, saying, “I cannot shake the hand of someone the Israelis have brought to whitewash their fascism and genocide. We are suffering!”

After Jibril’s refusal, Infantino spoke of the upcoming youth tournament. “We have a beautiful under-15 tournament coming up, where we will invite all 211 countries to participate, all the children of the world, let’s do it for that,” he said. “Let’s work together, you have my commitment, you have the support of the whole room.”

A spokesperson of the Israeli Football Association said that its president has “said publicly several times” that the Israeli team is “willing to use football as an instrument to promote normalization and peace.”

But “normalization” and “peace” can only mean so much as Israel has killed at least 565 Palestinian soccer players, coaches, and sports staff since the start of its genocide in Gaza in 2023. Between 5,000 and 6,000 survivors of the genocide have also lost limbs from Israeli bombings, including hundreds of athletes.

According to the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, normalization fosters “joint activity between the oppressed and the oppressor that is not based on the recognition of the rights of the oppressed” and that does not “aim at the elimination of oppression.” Instead, it is a “weapon used by Israel’s apartheid regime to whitewash its regime of oppression and undermine international solidarity.”

But Infantino has been on board with promoting a reactionary peace through soccer. In addition to ingratiating himself to Trump, Infantino has been criticized for “cozying up to autocrats” in Russia and Qatar during the previous two World Cups. Trump also invited Infantino as a guest at the White House for the signing of the Abraham Accords — which normalized relations between Israel and Arab states, the first of which were Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

And in February, Infantino announced a $50 million partnership between FIFA and Trump’s Board of Peace, with the plan to build soccer infrastructure in a decimated Gaza. In an article for Truthout, Dalia Abu Ramadan wrote, “Trump, together with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, promotes projects presented as symbols of peace and prosperity, while the basic needs of people are being ignored.”

Infantino’s plan for the youth tournament also ignores a decade-long campaign to ban Israel from FIFA.

In 2024, the Palestinian Football Association submitted a proposal to suspend Israel from international tournaments for violating FIFA’s statutes during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The proposal accuses the Israeli Football Association of complicity in violations of international law, and discrimination against Palestinian players. Rajoub stated at the time that FIFA must not remain indifferent to “violations or to the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

The 2024 complaint also rested on the fact that Israel has at least six clubs in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Nonetheless, in March 2026, FIFA announced that it will not take any action against the Israeli Football Association, saying that the “legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter.”

In response, Amnesty International spokesperson Steve Cockburn said:

The International Court of Justice has unambiguously declared that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful, that settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) are illegal and that Israel’s presence in the OPT must rapidly end. FIFA’s own statutes are clear that its members cannot play games in the territory of another association without permission.

“By continuing to condone the presence of clubs based in illegal settlements in the OPT in Israel’s league, the Israeli Football Association is indirectly legitimizing Israel’s unlawful occupation and its severe human rights violations against Palestinians, including the crime against humanity of apartheid,” he went on.

If it is peace that FIFA is promoting, it is certainly an exclusionary one. Last week, Rajoub said he was denied a visa to travel to the U.S. during the World Cup, and remains stuck in Mexico City despite his FIFA accreditations.

On Friday, activists in Toronto repeated the call to kick Israel out of FIFA ahead of Canada’s first World Cup game.