It remains to be seen if the plea of the Africa4Palestine group to the South African Football Federation (Safa) will fall on deaf ears or not.
This pro-Palestine movement has urged President Danny Jordaan and his Safa organisation to take a principled stance and support the expulsion of Israel from international football. A few weeks ago the Italian Football Coaches Association sent a letter to the Italian Football Federation urging it to petition FIFA to suspend Israel from all international competitions, including the forthcoming World Cup event.
Over the weekend, the final stage of the Vuelta a Espana cycling race was cancelled on Sunday (September 14) after protesters disrupted and entered part of the course. Over 1,000 police officers were deployed on the streets of Madrid and the race was subsequently brought to an end as more demonstrations were expected.
So, too, has Morocco’s former justice minister Mustapha Ramid added his voice to the rising chorus when he cited FIFA’s swift expulsion of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine and criticized FIFA for treating the Israeli national team on normal terms despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Recently, Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has also been vocal about the war in Gaza as well and called for Israel to be banned from international sports competitions.
The campaign, #GameOverIsrael campaign, supported by football greats such as England’s former striker Gary Lineker, French legend Eric Cantona amongst others, comes after Israel killed some 800 athletes in Gaza in the last 23 months. The campaign launched on Tuesday with a billboard in Times Square, calls on the soccer federations of Belgium, England, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland, and Spain to refuse to play against Israel’s national and club teams and bar Israeli players in an effort to build pressure on FIFA and UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) to suspend the country, writes Prem Thakker.
Now, Africa4Palestine expects Safa to follow suit and throw its weight behind the #RedCardIsrael campaign, but the SA Mother body has up to date, been ‘surprisingly’ and mum on this issue, given that it hosted a Palestinian national team during the Football for Humanity Cup in Cape Town last year – much to the dismay of many who stood tall and side-by-side, literally, with the Palestine national team on the Athlone Stadium on 11 February 2024.
This presidency of the Republic of SA, who confirmed by and official statement a day prior that president Cyril Ramaphosa would be present as “This match holds great significance as it takes place on a day embedded in the history of South Africa and in a momentous period for the Palestinian solidarity movement,” the release stated.
“It was on this day in 1990 that former President Nelson Mandela was released from prison, marking the victory of the liberation struggle against apartheid. It is noteworthy that the matches occur in the 30th year of South African freedom, a time when South Africa has taken decisive and historic steps on the global stage in the fight for Palestine’s liberation and the end of the conflict in Gaza,” the statement read.
Initially, SA was lauded and applauded for a bold and admirable move after they filed an case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the them of war crimes and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Needless to say, in a landmark interim order, the court determined that SA has legal standing and ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide
However, this unprecedented ruling was blatantly ignored as the situation in Gaza has worsened with the death toll rising by the day. It’s been recorded that as of 3 September 2025, over 66,700 people (65,643 Palestinians and 1,983 Israelis have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
That number includes 217 journalists and media workers, 120 academics and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, 179 employees of The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – not forgetting the 800 athletes in Gaza, more than 400 soccer players killed, including Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” while some serious intervention is urgently needed, Safa has remained silent on this genocide.
One wonders what changed from last year, when Ramaphosa, Jordaan along with other comrades who chanted “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” to now where it clearly shows they are turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by Israel.
So much so that they have allowed and ‘endorsed’ the move of one of their young under-20 national players, Mogamat Faiz Abrahams, to the Israeli Second-tier club Hapoel Kfar Saba on a season-long loan.
What mixed messages are Safa and SA sending to its citizens and the rest of the world? Is this deliberate or just plain cowardly? The hypocrisy of democracy!
