Palestinian Football Association (PFA) President will contest the 12-month match ban he was handed for calling on fans to burn shirts and pictures of Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi.
In August, FIFA deemed Rajoub’s participation in a campaign to prevent Argentina from playing Israel in a friendly in Jerusalem as amounting to an incitement to “hatred and violence”.
“We will go to the appeals court and to the FIFA sport court of appeals and to Swiss and European courts after we have exhausted the legal FIFA system,” Jibril Rajoub said Monday at a press conference in Ramallah on Monday.
The decision was “unfair” and “politically motivated”, he claimed.
Israeli authorities changed the venue of the game to Jerusalem from its original ground in Haifa, which further angered Palestinians. The change of venue came at a particularly sensitive time, after US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, infuriating Palestinians who want the eastern part of the city as the capital of their own future state.
The Argentinian football team eventually cancelled the friendly just days before it was scheduled to take place, citing criticism and threats of violence directed at Messi as the reason.
Rajoub contended at the time that the game would be exploited for political ends by Israel. He also rejected the accusation that Palestinians were politicising the game, saying that Israel had “paid millions in order to move the game [with Argentina] from Haifa to Jerusalem”.
“We will continue efforts to fight injustice against the association,” said Rajoub. “Israel continues to limit our movement and ability to play within the West Bank and Gaza, welcome trainers and experts – Iraq‘s team visit and Gaza athletes are recent examples.”
The disciplinary decision, made in May, is based on a settler’s petition against the PFA.
Rajoub said he was not officially informed of the measure and was only aware of its existence after seeing it on the FIFA website.
SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies
