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With FIFA apparently planning an emergency meeting, a UEFA member country might be kicked out of international football. FIFA, the world's governing body of football, will conduct an emergency meeting to consider if Israel should be excluded from the sport. It was earlier reported that FIFA would ‘would carry out a “legal assessment” of a proposal submitted by the Palestine Football Association (PFA) for inclusion on the agenda for its annual congress in Bangkok this week’.
The report said, “The proposal, which was backed by the FAs of Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Yemen, was not put to a vote of Fifa member associations on Friday, with Infantino revealing it would decided upon at an emergency meeting of the organisation’s council in late July.”
According to The Telegraph, FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced the meeting following Israel's response to the Hamas terrorist strikes on October 7. Infantino also indicated that the FAs of Israel and Palestine were going to be able to participate in the process.
He said, “Football should not and should never become a hostage for politics and always remain a vector for peace, a source of hope, a force of good, uniting people rather than dividing. This legal assessment will have to allow for inputs and claims of both member associations. The results of this analysis and the recommendations which will follow from this analysis will subsequently be forwarded to the Fifa council.”
How did the FAs react to the removal?
The president of the Palestinian Football Association spoke about this as he said, “How much more must the Palestine football family suffer for Fifa to act with the same severity and urgency as it did in other cases? Does Fifa consider some wars to be more important than others and some victims to be more significant? I ask you to stand on the right side of history. The suffering of millions, including thousands of footballers, deserves as much. If not now, then when? Mr president, the ball is in your court.”