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Jibril Rajoub, the president of the Palestine FA, was banned from all soccer activities for the next year by FIFA on Friday, a ruling stemming from words targeting Barcelona star Lionel Messi.
Rajoub had called on fans to burn jerseys and pictures of Messi ahead of a friendly between Argentina and Israel in Jerusalem this summer, saying one of the world’s biggest stars should not “whitewash the face of racism” by attending the match.
"Messi is a big symbol so we are going to target him personally and we call on everyone to burn his picture and his shirt and to abandon him,” Rajoub had said. “We still hope that he will not come."
The match was scheduled for June 9 but was ultimately canceled because of political tension, and Palestine thanked Messi for the decision.
Nonetheless, FIFA banned the Palestine FA president for inciting hatred and violence. Rajoub will be barred from taking part in any matches or competitions in any official capacity for 12 months, effective Friday. He was also fined about $20,000.
A soccer website is not the place to go into depth about the Palestine-Israel conflict that’s been raging for decades, if not centuries in various forms. But to give a brief overview to explain Rajoub’s actions, the Teddy Kollek Stadium in Jerusalem where the friendly was to take place is located in the neighborhood of Malha. The neighborhood was built on the site of former Palestinian village al-Maliha, which was essentially conquered 70 years ago during the Arab-Israeli War. Rajoub might not have had such harsh words for Lionel Messi had the match been scheduled for Buenos Aires or possibly even Tel Aviv.
The same Teddy Kollek Stadium hosted an Israel-Argentina friendly back in 1998, which Israel won 2-1. Interestingly, there are some fantastic Bronze Age excavation sites in the shadow of the stadium, with remains from villages dating back more than 4,000 years ago.
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