Facing the growing World Cups to suspend the Israeli football teams, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, said Thursday that the governing body must promote peace and unity and could not solve political problems.
In a feverish period for football policy, Infantino directed a meeting of the MSAY council of the FIFA Council that did not formally had Israel on the agenda before the 2026 World Cup classification games resume next week.
The strongest impulse against the Israeli teams of European soccer leaders during the two -year conflict in Gaza was arrested after a peace proposal on Monday at the White House by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Infantino emphasized his council of 37 members “the importance of promoting peace and unity, particularly in the context of the current situation in Gaza,” FIFA said in a press release that did not refer directly to Israel.
“FIFA cannot solve geopolitical problems,” said Infantino in the statement, “but can and should promote football worldwide taking advantage of its unifying, educational, cultural and humanitarian values.”
FIFA did not program a press conference and Infantino did not make the interviews available.
Israel's male team is scheduled to travel to play World Cup qualifiers against Norway in Oslo on October 11 and Italy in Udine three days later.
Norway was among the European Football Federations urging UEFA to call a vote of its Executive Committee before the FIFA meeting in Zurich about suspending Israeli teams of international competitions. Turkey's body directly asked UEFA and FIFA to suspend Israel.
Any 20 -member UEFA panel vote seemed to be approved, people familiar with discussions told Associated Press, despite the opposition of members of Israel and Germany.
FIFA and Infantino, which have built narrow ties with Trump before the United States World Cup next year with Canada and Mexico, could never follow any UEFA vote. That perspective became even more distant last week when the United States Department of State said it would work to protect the state of Israel in football.
Trump-Nanyahu's peace proposal was also well received by governments in the Middle East, including Qatar, a key defender of the Palestinian people and who has close links with UEFA and its president Aleksander Ceferin.
The FIFA meeting on Thursday attended Ceferin and the head of the European Soccer Club group, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, president of Paris Saint-Germain, the head of the Qatar Champions League. Al-Khelaifi is also a member of the Qatar government.
The head of the Palestinian Football Federation, Jibril Rajoub, has also been in Switzerland this week and met Thursday with the president of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry.
