The football world has been riddled with scandals this past week, but there’s yet another FIFA controversy you may not have heard about.
The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) has long been pushing to get Israel expelled from FIFA, pointing to the fact that they arrest, shoot and abuse Palestinian footballers. But when it was about to come to a FIFA vote, they mysteriously dropped the issue.
So what changed the Palestinians’ minds?
Deep down in FIFA’s underworld, which has started to look like it’s modelling itself on the Godfather films, huge amounts of pressure was mounted on the Palestinians to keep quiet about Israeli abuses. Then just before the vote, good ol’ Sepp Blatter used his might to overrule the key part of the motion, which referred clubs built in occupied Palestine to the UN.
In the end, the PFA caved in and dropped the matter. PFA head Jibril Rajoub claimed the association still intends to pursue the suspension, but for now the issue's on the back burner while Palestinians "assess the situation."
So much for FIFA’s “keep politics out of football.”
