When 73 professional athletes – including World Cup winner Paul Pogba – signed a joint letter demanding that UEFA suspend Israel from European football, it marked a dramatic escalation in the campaign to isolate Israel over its conduct in Gaza. What began as scattered protests from supporters and scattered statements from civil society has now coalesced into a broad, coordinated push from players, national federations, legal scholars and human rights groups. Together, they are urging European football’s governing body to confront what they describe as an unprecedented moral and legal crisis.
The letter, delivered directly to UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin in mid-November, declares that “no shared venue, stage or arena in international civil society should welcome a regime that commits genocide, apartheid and other crimes against humanity.” It is a call that echoes through locker rooms, national FA boardrooms, academic circles, and even legislation halls across Europe.
The athletes – among them Morocco’s Hakim Ziyech, England cricket star Moeen Ali, Spain’s Adama Traoré, and dozens of Premier League and Serie A professionals – argue that the continuation of “business as usual” in European football is now indefensible. They accuse UEFA of maintaining a relationship with the Israel Football Association (IFA) that provides “financial and political cover” as Israel faces a damning United Nations genocide investigation and mounting evidence of systematic attacks on Palestinian sports culture.
A Sporting Generation Erased
Central to the players’ appeal is the devastation of Gaza’s sporting infrastructure. According to documentation highlighted by the campaign groups Game Over Israel and Athletes 4 Peace, at least 421 Palestinian footballers have been killed since Israel’s assault on the enclave began. Stadiums, training centres, football pitches, youth facilities and gyms have been razed or rendered unusable. An entire generation of Palestinian footballers, coaches and referees has been “decimated,” the athletes say.
The signatories highlight the death of Gaza football legend Suleiman al-Obeid, often dubbed the “Palestinian Pelé,” who was killed while waiting for humanitarian aid – a symbol, they argue, of how deeply sport itself has been targeted and erased.
For the players, the numbers alone represent a moral red line. But their argument goes further: they say UEFA’s partnership with the IFA directly implicates it in this destruction.
UEFA Under Growing Legal Scrutiny
The athletes’ intervention comes on the heels of a sharply worded legal letter from more than 30 genocide experts, international jurists and human rights lawyers, organised by Game Over Israel in October. That letter warned that UEFA could be “legally accountable” for facilitating war crimes by continuing to admit Israel to European competitions. At issue is not only the war in Gaza, but Israel’s long-standing practice of allowing football clubs based in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank to compete in its domestic league system – a violation of international law, FIFA statutes, and UEFA’s own ethical code.
The scholar’s letter (and now the players’) argues that UEFA has knowingly allowed member-state clubs to compete while operating on illegally annexed land, exposing itself to potential complicity in breaches of international humanitarian law.
One jurist described it as “the most serious legal warning UEFA has ever received about its relationships with a member federation.”
Precedent and Double Standards
Campaigners repeatedly invoke UEFA’s 2022 suspension of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Back then, the federation acted within days, citing football’s responsibility to uphold peace and human rights. But in the case of Israel, critics say, UEFA has stalled.
The athletes challenge UEFA’s insistence that football remain “neutral,” arguing that neutrality in the face of genocide is itself a form of endorsement. Their letter quotes Čeferin’s own past declaration that “football belongs to everyone” – and counters that allowing participation by a state engaged in mass killing “risks severing football from its heart and soul – humanity.”
They warn that UEFA’s credibility is on the line.
National Federations Join In
Pressure on UEFA is now coming from inside the organisation. In October, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) passed a resolution formally calling on UEFA to suspend the Israel Football Association, citing settlement clubs and repeated violations of anti-racism standards. The Turkish Football Federation made a similar demand in September, becoming the first national body to publicly press UEFA to act.
Europa’s governing body reportedly prepared to table an internal vote on Israel’s suspension but quietly paused the move, pending diplomatic developments around the latest U.S. “peace plan.” That delay has angered campaigners who say UEFA is now hiding behind geopolitics rather than adhering to its own disciplinary precedents.
A Player-Led Moral Intervention
What distinguishes the Pogba-backed letter from earlier initiatives is its emotional and moral framing. While jurists emphasised legal exposure and states stressed political obligations, the athletes focus on the symbolic and cultural meaning of football.
“Sport is not just entertainment,” the letter argues. “It is a universal language of dignity, community and hope.” They insist that allowing Israel to continue in UEFA competitions while carrying out documented atrocities “normalises the destruction of human life” and communicates that “some lives matter less.”
The signatories point to young Palestinian athletes whose careers ended before they began, describing them as “children who dreamed of the game, who wore their club colours, who never got to play on a safe pitch.”
UEFA’s Silence Grows Louder
UEFA has not issued a formal response to the athletes. Its last public statement on the matter came weeks earlier, when it acknowledged receiving “numerous submissions” related to Israel but affirmed that changes to member status required formal procedures.
Privately, senior UEFA officials admit they are under extraordinary pressure. Several major broadcasters and sponsors expressed concern about reputational risk should evidence of international crimes grow stronger. Some clubs have signalled to their national federations that they are uncomfortable playing Israeli teams in European competitions under the present circumstances.
For now, the governing body appears paralysed – caught between legal warnings, political sensitivities, commercial pressures and the growing moral voice of its players.
A Sport at a Crossroads
The movement to suspend Israel from UEFA now consists of athletes, advocates, political leaders, national federations and legal experts, all converging on the same demand. Whether UEFA yields to their pressure remains uncertain, but the campaign has already reshaped global discussion around the relationship between sport and human rights.
For athletes like Pogba, this is about more than football. It is about the meaning of collective conscience at a time when civilians, including fellow athletes, are being killed in staggering numbers.
And it is about whether Europe’s most powerful sporting institution will recognise that its decisions now carry not just sporting consequences, but profound moral ones.
