A group of leading scholars, including numerous professors of international law, have today written to FIFA’s Governance Audit and Compliance Committee (GAAC), in relation to the committee’s examination of a complaint relating to the holding of matches in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The Palestine Football Association (PFA) first complained to FIFA in 2013 about Israeli teams, under the auspices of the Israel Football Association (IFA), playing matches in settlements in the West Bank, and submitted an expanded complaint in March 2024. In October 2024, FIFA said that it had delegated the GAAC, an oversight mechanism that monitors compliance with FIFA’s Governance Regulations, to investigate the issue. In May 2025, FIFA’s General Secretary said that the GACC “recently requested expert reporting including on topics of territoriality to support its work”. The PFA argues that its complaint is stuck in “a highly politicized, bureaucratic holding pattern”.
The academics’ letter has been written in response to the FIFA committee’s apparent need for expert information. It has been signed by prominent jurists, historians and experts in politics and international relations, including two former UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967. Its signatories come from countries including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland, and include Professors Michelle Burgis-Kasthala, John Dugard, Ardi Imseis, Michael Lynk, Ilan Pappe, Nicola Pratt, and William Schabas. The letter reads:
“We would like to provide the Committee with an expert assessment of the issue that the FIFA General Secretary called “territoriality” as it pertains to Israel and Palestine. In summary, Israel has militarily occupied Palestinian territory since 1967, and the settlements it has established on this territory are illegal under international law. These are unassailable facts.”
The letter explains why the settlements are illegal, with reference to the Fourth Geneva Convention, UN Security Council Resolutions 446 and 2334, and decisions of the International Court of Justice in 2004 and 2024, and offers guidance to the GAAC on the questions that it needs to resolve in order to determine if the Israel Football Association is in violation of FIFA’s statutes:
“The Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee need not concern itself with the question of the legality of Israeli settlements, but simply the issue of whether Israeli teams continue to play football matches in settlements in the West Bank. If that is the case, as the PFA alleges and the IFA has never denied, then the IFA is ipso facto in violation of article 64 (2) of the FIFA Statutes, which states that “Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without the latter’s approval.”
FairSquare coordinated the letter and sent it to the GAAC Chairman, Bruce Chiomento, and Deputy Chairman, Chris Mihm, on 25 June 2025. Nick McGeehan, FairSquare’s co-director said:
“FIFA has been kicking the can down the road on this issue for 12 years despite clear evidence of a flagrant and very serious violation of its statutes. If its Governance Committee ignores a letter of this nature from academics of this stature, it will only serve to confirm that it is not independent and that FIFA has no interest in good governance.”
In July 2024, FairSquare submitted a report to FIFA arguing that there are multiple grounds that should give FIFA cause to suspend or expel the IFA. In addition to the IFA’s sanctioning of matches in occupied Palestinian territory, the report referenced serious and systematic racial discrimination, political interference, and Israel’s killing of Palestinian players and the systematic destruction of PFA facilities – most of which predate Israel’s attacks in Gaza since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023. FIFA did not respond to the report.
