A report published in June 2025 by Kick It Out (KIO) Israel describes systematic failures on the part of the Israel Football Association (IFA) to tackle serious and pervasive racism among supporter groups. Bohemians, FairSquare and Irish Sport for Palestine have provided UEFA with a copy of the report, which provides the strongest evidence to date of the need for  UEFA to suspend the IFA.

According to the KIO Israel report, which is based on observations made by trained monitors at every Israeli Premier League match in the 2024/2025 football season, there was “a significant rise in racist chants in football stadiums, accompanied by a lack of meaningful enforcement against such incidents.” 

• KIO Israel recorded a 64% increase in racist incidents from the previous season.
• The report says that the 2024/2025 season was the third consecutive season in which racist chanting has increased in Israeli stadiums.
• KIO Israel documented racist chanting among the supporters of 13 out of 14 of the teams in the Israel Premier League.
• The club whose fans were recorded with the highest number of racist chants was Maccabi Tel Aviv, with 118 incidents (compared to 75 in the 2023/2024 season), followed by Beitar Jerusalem, whose supporters have a long history of anti-Arab racism and violence.)
• Despite the significant rise in racist incidents, the IFA initiated only 12 disciplinary proceedings for fan racism in the 2024/2025 season (the same number as the previous season), and none of these were directed against Maccabi Tel Aviv despite the racist and violent behaviour of their supporters in Amsterdam in November 2024 having been well-documented and widely broadcast.

The KIO Israel report is highly critical of the Israel Football Association’s failure to effectively sanction clubs whose supporters engage in racist behaviour, describing “a significant rise in racist chants in football stadiums, accompanied by a lack of meaningful enforcement against such incidents.” The report says that “ the lack of enforcement against racism, violence, and homophobia…reflects the absence of a serious and effective effort to combat these phenomena” and that “when such phenomena are not met with serious, proactive measures, the situation only worsens.”

Article 7 bis (7) of UEFA’s statutes requires member associations to “implement an effective policy aimed at eradicating racism and any other forms of discrimination from football and apply a regulatory framework providing that any such behaviour is strictly sanctioned”.

“In the debate around the possible suspension of the Israel Football Association, the central issue of UEFA and FIFA’s statutory rules has been curiously and worryingly absent. This new data – from an Israeli organisation working courageously to instill the values that football’s governing bodies purport to value – provides very strong evidence that the IFA is violating UEFA’s rules.” Nicholas McGeehan, programme director at FairSquare.

Bohemians, FairSquare and Irish Sport for Palestine wrote to UEFA on 18 September 2025 urging them to suspend the IFA on the basis of their serious, ongoing breaches of UEFA and FIFA statutes. UEFA has not responded to that letter and did not respond to FairSquare’s letter of 2 December 2024 urging them to investigate the racism that preceded and followed Maccabi Tel Aviv’s match with Ajax Amsterdam on 7 November 2024. In the aftermath of the violence in Amsterdam, UEFA issued a statement saying that it would ”examine all official reports, gather available evidence, assess them and evaluate any further appropriate course of action in accordance with its relevant regulatory framework.” There is no evidence of UEFA conducting any such investigation.