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Palestinian football chief defends FIFA move

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Palestinian football chief Jibril Rajoub on Tuesday said he took full responsibility for an 11th-hour decision to withdraw a bid to have FIFA suspend Israel from the world footballing body. The surprise decision was announced by Rajoub on Friday at the annual FIFA congress in Zurich minutes before the vote, reportedly sparking jubilation in Israel but deep-rooted frustration among the Palestinians, some of whom have demanded his resignation as head of Palestinian Football Association (PFA).

“I take full responsibility for this matter,” he told reporters in Al-Bireh near Ramallah, insisting that the resolution had not been dropped but only suspended.

“From the start, I said this was about sport, not politics.”

The PFA had threatened to table a resolution calling on FIFA to suspend Israel over its restrictions on the movement of Palestinian players. It had also opposed the participation in the Israeli championships of five clubs located in illegal Jewish-only West Bank settlements.

The football governing body voted instead on an amendment proposing the formation of a committee to monitor the movement of Palestinian football players, Israeli racism, as well as the status of Israeli league teams based in settlements.
Rajoub admitted the PFA had come under a lot of pressure from fellow associations as well as from UEFA chief Michel Platini to back off from the move. Most of the football associations told us they would vote against us if we presented the motion as it was,” he said.

“We modified the motion and froze the suspension until FIFA is able to investigate.”

Taking desperate last minute measures, then-FIFA chief Sepp Blatter had traveled to the region for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas to try and resolve the dispute.

‘Historic milestone’

Despite this, Rajoub denied Abbas was involved in the decision to drop the resolution, insisting the president “had nothing to do with it.” And he said that cornering Israel over its actions both on and off the pitch putting was “a historic and important milestone in the history of Palestinian sports.”

While the new amendment passed in place of the suspension designates a “multi-lateral monitor group to work directly under the rules of the FIFA Ethics, Legal, and Discrimination committees, and will be composed of International Observers,” it is not yet clear in what capacity the group will act to monitor Israeli violations against Palestinian players.

Re-elected but recently resigned FIFA President Sepp Blatter appointed former South African cabinet minister and African National Congress (ANC) leader Tokyo Sexwale to head the committee. Both an anti-apartheid activist and former political prisoner, Sexwale’s nomination to head the monitoring committee was a reminder of the potential role sports played in ending the era of apartheid South Africa.

As the the results of Rajoub’s last minute calls will only be seen in the long term, his controversial decision sparked anger back home, with Palestinian activists launching an online petition to have him sacked. Dropping the bid to suspend Israel from FIFA was an “outrageous deviation from our values, principles and efforts to expose the Israeli occupation’s crimes and to oust Israel from international organizations,” the leftist party Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said following the decision.

“We spent a long time mobilizing international federations to support the Palestinian bid and we were surprised when Rajoub said they had withdrawn the motion,” activist Fadi Quran told AFP.

“We have launched a petition asking for Rajoub to be dismissed.”

The Palestinian football chief also defended himself against allegations that he had voted for Blatter to stay on as FIFA president in the face of a challenge from Prince Ali bin al Hussein of Jordan.

“I voted for Prince Ali because I am an Arab,” he said of the vote which took place on Friday and saw Blatter winning a fifth term in office, before he resigned late Tuesday after ongoing charges of corruption.

“There is a forged statement circulating in the media that I voted for Blatter,” he said.

“This statement was deliberately published to harm Palestinian sport.” MAAN


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