{"id":509463,"date":"2026-06-24T22:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T22:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/509463\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T22:40:12","slug":"israels-fifa-prospects-would-be-better-in-asia-but-it-is-sticking-to-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/509463\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s FIFA prospects would be better in Asia, but it is sticking to Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than five decades after Israel\u2019s only World Cup<\/a> appearance, the Israel Football Association says it has no intention of trying to leave Europe for the Asian regional qualifying system that once took the country to the tournament, before Arab-led boycotts helped force it out.<\/p>\n

The launch this month of the tournament hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada<\/a> has renewed attention to Israel\u2019s absence from the World Cup. Despite a thriving local soccer scene and success in competition abroad, the only time the country appeared in the tournament was in Mexico in 1970.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Israel seeks to qualify through the Union of European Football Associations, whose ranks are so strong that even a solid campaign can become a long shot for the World Cup. Even titans like four-time World Cup winner Italy<\/a> failed to qualify this year.<\/p>\n

Israel is the only non-European country trying to reach the tournament through UEFA, while most of its neighbors seek places through the Asian Football Confederation. Israel was ousted from the Asian soccer body in 1974. It bounced around the qualifying zones for a few years \u2014 it played in the Oceania qualifiers ahead of the 1986 and 1990 World Cups \u2014 before settling in the European grouping in 1991.<\/p>\n

Return to Asia not on the table<\/p>\n

Shlomi Barzel, head of communications for the Israel Football Association, said a return to Asia<\/a> is not on the table, both because Israel does not want to leave European soccer, where it has built a standing, and because he does not believe the Asian confederation would accept it back.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe FIFA World Cup 2026 qualification match between Estonia and Israel in Tallinn, Estonia, on June 6, 2025. (credit: FLASH90)<\/p>\n

The only upside to such a move, he joked, would be if Israel\u2019s opponents boycotted matches against it: \u201cIsrael would automatically qualify.\u201d<\/p>\n

A boycott of Israel did affect the team\u2019s path to the 1970 World Cup. North Korea was ejected from the Asian qualifying tournament after refusing to play in Israel. As a result, Israel advanced to the final round after winning only two games against New Zealand. In the finals, Israel faced an Australian team already exhausted after fending off South Korea, Japan, and Rhodesia (itself in the Asian tournament after being banned in Africa over its white governing regime).<\/p>\n

In the tournament in Mexico, Israel\u2019s all-amateur team defied expectations, losing 0-2 to Uruguay but notching draws against Sweden and Italy before being eliminated.<\/p>\n

Israel ejected from Asian Football Confederation<\/p>\n

Four years later, Israel was effectively ejected from the Asian Football Confederation following a resolution introduced by Kuwait that passed 17 to 13, with six abstentions. The vote came a day before a high-profile Israel-Iran game in Tehran that Iran won 1-0 on an Israeli own goal.<\/p>\n

Today, Barzel rejects the premise that rejoining the AFC would guarantee Israel a place in the World Cup going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a little patronizing and arrogant for me to say that,\u201d he said, adding that he was not sure Israel would beat teams such as Jordan or Qatar.<\/p>\n

Barzel also cited Israel\u2019s place inside UEFA\u2019s institutions as a benefit for sticking with the current arrangement. Current IFA chairman Moshe \u201cShino\u201d Zuaretz was elected to UEFA\u2019s Executive Committee in April 2025, despite the war in Gaza and growing calls to sanction Israeli soccer, while former IFA chairman Avi Luzon previously served in a senior role on the same body.<\/p>\n

Institutional backing has extended beyond Europe, Barzel said, pointing to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where Israeli fans were allowed to attend despite the absence of diplomatic ties. He also cited the global soccer body FIFA\u2019s decision to move the 2023 under-20s World Cup from Indonesia to Argentina after Indonesia objected to hosting Israel\u2019s team. Israel went on to finish third.<\/p>\n

Still, Israel\u2019s formal place in international soccer has done little to shield its teams and supporters from hostility. Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were attacked in Amsterdam after a match against Ajax in November 2024, and the club\u2019s supporters were later barred from attending an Aston Villa match in a decision that became a political and policing scandal in Britain.<\/p>\n

Despite its absence from the World Cup, Israel has remained a political flashpoint around the event, which U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to make \u201can unprecedented success.\u201d Speculation that Trump\u2019s hopes for a World Cup untainted by war spurred his push for a ceasefire with Iran prompted a denial from the \u00a0top White House official dealing with the World Cup.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t keep the conflict from seeping into the events.<\/p>\n

In Boston on June 19, kilt-clad Scotland fans waiting in blocks-long lines to board shuttles to the stadium where their team would face Morocco accepted Palestinian flags from activists lining the route.<\/p>\n

Hours before Canada\u2019s opening match on June 12, activists draped a \u201cKick Israel out of FIFA\u201d banner over a World Cup logo near one of Toronto\u2019s busiest highways.<\/p>\n

Days later, a viral video from Iran\u2019s match against New Zealand in Los Angeles showed security guards confiscating an Israeli flag from a fan \u2014 who was told they were acting on orders from their superiors \u2014 while other spectators behind him held Palestinian flags.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s special envoy for global partnerships, Paolo Zampolli, told Israel\u2019s Kan public broadcaster he was \u201cvery disturbed\u201d by the incident in Los Angeles, adding that there was \u201cno place for antisemitism or double standards in sports.\u201d Zampolli, who had previously urged FIFA to replace Iran with Italy at the World Cup, called on the soccer body to treat the episode seriously.<\/p>\n

Barzel drew a distinction between the flag incident, which he said was likely a poor decision by stadium staff, and any official FIFA policy against Israel, noting that Israel\u2019s flag is displayed alongside those of other member associations at official FIFA and UEFA events. FIFA generally discourages flags of teams not playing in a given match, he said, and added that Israeli teams have grown used to seeing Palestinian flags in soccer stadiums.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I don\u2019t get worked up by flags \u2014 they don\u2019t scare me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Yoav Borowitz, head of sports at Kan, said FIFA appeared wary of flags being used as protest symbols, pointing to the Iranian lion-and-sun flag, the country\u2019s flag before the 1979 revolution, which installed the current theocratic regime, which some fans waved at the same match. FIFA\u2019s failure to clarify whether Israeli flags were allowed in stadiums in the days after the incident, he said, \u201cshows where Israel stands at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were official FIFA stewards there,\u201d he said, \u201cand if the fan was effectively forced to remove the flag, then I would have expected FIFA to have issued a response by now and said that Israeli flags are allowed into stadiums, just as Palestinian flags are allowed into stadiums, just as the flag of any country is allowed into stadiums.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any limits placed on Israel\u2019s soccer association have been imposed solely on security grounds, Barzel said, though in October, UEFA came close to holding an emergency vote on whether to suspend Israel over the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

At FIFA\u2019s congress in Vancouver in April, when Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub refused to shake hands with Israel FA Vice President Basim Sheikh Suliman despite repeated appeals from FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who called on the sides to \u201cgive hope to the children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite such gestures, Israel continues to compete as usual \u2014 almost. It has been unable to host matches at home for close to three years because of war and has had to play its home World Cup qualifiers in neutral third countries. It is hosting several contests this fall in Moldova, which last year gained an Israeli embassy and direct El Al routes for the first time. (Russia, by contrast, has had its national teams and clubs suspended from FIFA and UEFA competitions since its invasion of Ukraine.)<\/p>\n

Despite the controversies, FIFA has kept pressing ahead with its vision of soccer as \u201ca force for unity, peace and hope,\u201d including reported discussions about opening a new under-15\u2019s tournament in the United States in September with a symbolic match between Israeli and Palestinian youth teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than five decades after Israel\u2019s only World Cup appearance, the Israel Football Association says it has no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19712,8316,4118,85,46,107,43,19711],"class_list":["post-509463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-football","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israeli-sports","tag-news","tag-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}