Ahead of the opening matches of the 2026/27 men’s UEFA Nations League group phase where Austria, Ireland and Kosovo will play against Israel during the September 24 – October 6 international window, Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for Europe said:
“It’s unconscionable that the Israel men’s football team will participate in the UEFA Nations League this autumn despite clear evidence that Israel’s football association continues to support illegal settlements.
“Instead of sending a clear message that there is a cost for Israel’s unlawful occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and its atrocity crimes against Palestinians, UEFA is giving Israel an international stage as it maintains its brutal occupation of the OPT, its system of apartheid over all Palestinians, and its ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“UEFA and FIFA should have suspended the Israel Football Association (IFA) long ago, for its refusal to exclude clubs based in illegal settlements in the OPT. Their continued participation in the Israeli leagues is in brazen violation of FIFA’s statutes and is contrary to international law. As the money keeps flowing from FIFA and UEFA to the IFA, they risk contributing to the sustainability of illegal settlements and of Israel’s unlawful occupation of the OPT, and therefore Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ human rights.
“Decisions and opinions by international courts, and resolutions by the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council, over the last decades, have repeatedly condemned Israel for its multiple and egregious violations.
“Sport should never be used as a public relations spectacle for states committing atrocities. As the Israel team travels to Europe, Palestinian families are being displaced and dispossessed, their land stolen, their olive trees uprooted and their histories erased by settlers with the support of the Israeli military. The beautiful game should bring people together, not rubber-stamp apartheid.
“As political leaders and sporting authorities choose to stay on the sidelines, fueling Israel’s impunity, fans are stepping onto the pitch to demand accountability, justice and fair play. When rules are broken, when occupation, apartheid and genocide are ongoing, we cannot look the other way.”
Background
The Israel men’s football team will participate in the forthcoming group phase matches for the fifth edition of UEFA Nations League. The group phase matches will take place across two sets of matches, the first four between September 24 to October 6 and another two matches between November 12 to November 17. Israel is part of League B in this grouping, together with Austria, Ireland and Kosovo.
There is strong public opposition to Israel’s participation in football competitions in Ireland under the umbrella of the ‘Stop the Game’ campaign. Several football associations, players, activists, trade unions, artists and politicians have called for sanctions, boycott or the suspension of the forthcoming matches between Ireland and Israel scheduled for September 27 and October 4.
The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) formally submitted a request to UEFA to consider suspending Israel from UEFA competitions. UEFA has nevertheless approved the Nations League fixtures and the use of “neutral venues” where necessary, in countries other than Israel and Ireland. The games between Ireland and Israel are scheduled to take place in “neutral venues” in Hungary and Serbia, behind closed doors with no fans allowed in the stadiums.
In October 2025, Amnesty International wrote to FIFA and UEFA calling for the suspension of the IFA unless clubs from illegal settlements in OPT were immediately excluded from participating in domestic Israeli leagues.
In March 2026, FIFA announced that no action will be taken against IFA over the participation of clubs based in illegal settlements in Israel’s leagues. With this position FIFA is indirectly legitimizing, and risks contributing to, Israel’s unlawful occupation and its severe human rights violations against Palestinians, including the crime against humanity of apartheid, while also ignoring the International Court of Justice’s 2024 Advisory Opinion.
Prompted by FIFA’s decision to reject their complaints regarding Israeli settlement clubs, the Palestinian Football Association has submitted a case to the Court of Arbitration of Sport.
Amnesty International’s recent report, Erasing Anything Palestinian: Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of West Bank, exposes how the current Israeli Government has made formal annexation under Israeli law of Palestinian land in the unlawfully occupied Palestinian territory an explicit state policy, whose implementation has been turbocharged, including through state-backed settler violence.
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