Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub talks to reporters at the FIFA Congress, held in Vancouver on April 30. (Screenshot youtube.com/@thebreakernews)
While the World Cup doesn’t kick off until June 11 – at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca when Selección de fútbol de México faces off against the South African squad, nicknamed Bafana Bafana (the Boys, in Zulu) – penalty cards have already been drawn. Palestinian Football Association (PFA) president Jibril Rajoub, general secretary Firas Abu Hilal and vice-president Susan Shalabi Molano were initially denied entry to Canada to attend the FIFA Congress on April 30, and the Asian Football Confederation confab two days earlier – both events were held at Vancouver Convention Centre.
Ultimately, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) allowed the three sports bureaucrats to attend, and Rajoub, 72, has made the Mondial into a political football. Since 2024, he has repeatedly raised the issue of Israeli football clubs allegedly playing illegal matches in what the PFA argues is occupied territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.
In March, FIFA (which stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association) issued a report on the issue, ruling it would “take no action” over the PFA’s claim. The report noted that resolving “the final legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter under public international law.”
At the FIFA annual meeting in Vancouver, Rajoub – who also serves as secretary general of Fatah’s Central Committee – snubbed FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who attempted to orchestrate a handshake between the heads of the Palestinian and Israeli delegations. Following individual addresses toward the end of the assembly, both Rajoub and the Israel Football Association’s vice-president, Basim Sheikh Suliman, were summoned to the stage by the FIFA president.
“We will work together … let’s work together to give hope to the children. These are complex matters,” he said. But Rajoub refused to stand alongside Sheikh Suliman. Instead, he pledged to take his complaints to the Court of Arbitration in Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. No date has been set for the hearing.
“I refused to shake hands. Sport is sport … for me that should be respected,” he told Reuters. “But, if the other side is representing a criminal like Bibi [Netanyahu] … how can I shake hands or have a photo with such a man?”
The PFA’s three-member delegation wasn’t the only one held up by the IRCC. Iranian soccer federation president Mehdi Taj said Canadian officials cleared him to enter the country for the FIFA Congress, but Iran’s delegation chose to turn back after being held for three hours and questioned at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, Iranian media reported on May 1.
Rajoub, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Rami, has long been connected to Palestinian terrorism. In September 1970, he was arrested for throwing a grenade at an Israel Defence Forces bus near Hebron. Tried and convicted of this attack and of membership in an armed group, he was sentenced to life in prison. Fifteen years later, he was one of 1,150 security prisoners Israel released in exchange for three hostages held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.
Re-arrested in 1987 for his activities during the First Intifada, Rajoub was deported to Lebanon in 1988. Relocating to Tunisia, he served as an advisor to Fatah deputy leader Khalil al-Wazir. After Wazir’s assassination by Israeli agents, he became a lieutenant of Yasser Arafat, then head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and was allegedly behind a 1992 plot to assassinate Ariel Sharon.
Rajoub was allowed to return to the West Bank in 1994, following the signing of the Oslo Accords. He served as head of the PA’s Preventive Security Force until 2002. The following year, Arafat appointed him national security advisor.
The FIFA Congress was the 76th since FIFA was founded in 1904. It brought together more than 1,600 international delegates from 211 FIFA member associations.
This summer’s 48-team competition – the most widely watched sporting event in the world – takes place in multiple cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian team qualified for the tournament.
Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide who lives in Jerusalem.