The most infuriating thing about the political-diplomatic loss Israel suffered this week when the Argentine national soccer team cancelled its scheduled friendly match in Israel is that it was a response to an unnecessary war waged over a matter in which we already won. When the U.S. moved its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, most other countries in the world still maintained their embassies in Tel Aviv. In sports and soccer, that is not the case.
Israel hosts international matches in Jerusalem and holds a lot of home games in the capital. Even the Union of European Football Associations has opted to hold a major international match in Jerusalem – the final of the 2013 junior championship. This happened not because it was forced, but because of a vote in which Israel and Jerusalem beat out the Czech Republic, England, and Bulgaria, who were also vying to host the game. True, one or two Muslim players muttered something about refusing to play, but they were shut down by their local soccer federations. It's not the place and it's not the debate.
The perception that hosting a soccer match outside the capital is a problem is detached from any understanding of the essence of soccer. Most European countries – including Germany, Italy, and Spain – play home matches in different cities, and generally not in their respective capitals. Israel, by choice, hosts its official matches in a few different cities. We played Italy in Haifa, and Belgium in Jerusalem. We never asked anyone about it, and no one asked us.
What's more, if the now-canceled Argentina match had been held in Haifa, as originally planned, Israel's would have achieved its publicity goals. Israel, unfortunately, is a too weak a soccer team for the play itself to make headlines, but the photos of Argentinian stars, many of whom are devout Catholics, touring Jerusalem and other holy sites, would have gone out to the world media. Anyone who tried to kick up a storm would have discovered that the makeup of the Israeli team reflects the democratic, egalitarian nature of the game: minority players, including the captain, had been on the roster for the match.
Until last week, Israeli soccer – and Israeli sports in general – were in a position that Israeli diplomacy could only dream about: one of total recognition and normalization. But someone decided to exploit the Argentina match to stir up an international debate, dragging Argentina – an internationally renowned team – into a public relations campaign, and right before the start of the 2018 World Cup tournament.
The campaign was not on behalf of Jerusalem's image or the image of Israeli soccer, both of which were perfect until this week. The campaign was a personal political ploy. A few days before the match was supposed to take place, there were rumors about irregularities in ticket distribution. Corruption is a sign of vested interests, and vested interests are personal. But it's Israeli soccer and Jerusalem that will pay the price. The PR fallout could be unprecedented.
In 2002, Palestinian terrorists carried out a combined shooting and grenade attack at the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv, where a few wives and girlfriends of soccer players from the Hapoel Tel Aviv club were dining the night before a scheduled match against A.C. Milan. In Italy, some people fussed over the risk to its team and for a few years, Israeli soccer and basketball teams were forced to host international matches outside Israel.
A few impressive sports victories – Hapoel Tel Aviv against Milan, Maccabi Haifa against Manchester United – were racked up in neighboring countries. But that does not come close to the current low point. First of all, even if the motivation back then was political, the explanation was about safety.
When the Second Intifada ended, Israel went back to hosting games "in-house," unconditional on any peace process, concession of territory or other political act. More importantly, the expatriated games were being kept out of Israel as a whole and had nothing to do with the status of Jerusalem. So this is the lowest point for Israeli sports since it was expelled from Asian sport in 1976.
The Palestinian failure in FIFA
In 2015, the Palestinians made an intense political effort to strike a blow to Israel when they tried to have it barred from FIFA, the international soccer federation. They were sorely disappointed. First of all, they ran up against a diplomatic wall when it came to European countries – some of whom are extremely friendly to Israel. These countries defended Israel as a legitimate, and veteran, member of European soccer. They also defended the most flourishing sport in the world against politicization.
But the Palestinians were much more disappointed to discover that they had very little practical support from influential Arab officials in the soccer world. They found that the Arab world was as interested as western countries in keeping politics out of soccer. Qatar is busy with the World Cup it will be hosting in 2022, and it and other Arab nations own major assets in European soccer. Moreover, Arab soccer players and officials aspire to and reach senior positions in FIFA.
When it comes to soccer, the Arab world tries to present a calm, normative face. Just a few months ago, Saudi Arabia passed a law allowing women to enter stadiums. It was an area it decided not to exploit for political purposes.
Why? Because the world hates politics in sports. It has been many years since there was a political boycott of a sporting event. Political boycotts unrelated to Israel caused immense damage to international sports in the 1970s and 1980s. They have disappeared. The approach in sports is simple: No one wants to be the first to boycott. The last incident – when then-Yugoslavia was kept out of the European Championship in 1992 – was a result of the U.N. and international community's boycott of the country.
So the cancellation of the Argentina game is an incident of which certain countries could take advantage. Countries with problematic human rights records host sporting events and use them to get a public diplomacy boost. Countries with image problems, and Israel is unfortunately among them, come off very well when they host events. The Giro D'Italia and the various championship games held in Israel brought the country an enormous benefit. The principle of keeping politics out of sports has served Israel well in recent years. Then Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev came in and ruined that balance.
