“There’s a lot of heavy lobbying on people to be quiet, so I understand why most people refrain.” The words are Gary Lineker’s and they came during a recent interview with the US-based British broadcaster Medhi Hasan about Israel’s assault on Gaza.
It was Lineker’s admission about crying at the images of death and destruction that created headlines. Yet his observation about the pressure on high-profile figures to keep quiet about this hugely polarising conflict was intriguing.
After Black Lives Matter and the visible shows of support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, football – in this country at least – has been largely silent on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
However, in the last week a “Stop Genocide” message was paraded on a Palestinian flag by two pitch intruders ahead of the Women’s Champions League final in Bilbao and some high-profile footballers, such as Arsenal’s William Saliba, joined tens of millions in sharing the “All Eyes on Rafah” image on their Instagram accounts.
This weekend brings a more significant occasion still in the form of a charity match at Barnet’s The Hive stadium to raise funds for the children of Gaza.
Less than five miles separate Barnet’s ground from Wembley, where the global gaze will fall on the Champions League final on 1 June. Yet the hope at The Hive will be to divert that gaze back to Gaza and the game will begin with an emotion-charged gesture.
As organiser Ebadur Rahman explains, there will be no mascots to lead the players on to the pitch; rather the estimated “17,000 children killed” in Gaza have been assigned that role.
“It will be a poignant day but we want to show the children of Gaza that they aren’t forgotten and will be remembered for years to come,” says Rahman. “We’ve received messages from children in Gaza to say they’ve seen about the game. It’s a humanitarian gesture from the players and every penny from ticket sales will go to the children there.”
The list of participants includes a number of Premier League footballers: Crystal Palace duo Jeffrey Schlupp and Jairo Riedewald, Everton midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure, Fulham’s Adama Traore, Leicester City’s Hamza Choudhury and Donny van de Beek of Manchester United.
The teams have been assembled by Anwar El Ghazi, the former Aston Villa and Ajax winger and Rahman’s Nujum Sports, a charity supporting Muslim athletes. The Nujum XI will include ex-Arsenal and Manchester City defender Bacary Sagna, and former England striker Emile Heskey, as well as current Ipswich Town captain Sam Morsy.
Morsy is that rare thing, a footballer who has spoken publicly about the conflict during a post-match interview, as he did after Ipswich’s Boxing Day fixture against Leicester.
“While the plight continues in Palestine we’re the lucky ones, we get to play football for a living,” said a player who later draped himself in a Palestinian flag when celebrating Ipswich’s promotion to the Premier League.
As for the other players taking part, Choudhury for example posts regularly about the conflict on X – his timeline includes posts showing Celtic fans displaying Palestinian flags and a string of broken-heart emojis after this week’s killings in Rafah.
By contrast, the most high-profile Muslim player in the Premier League, Liverpool’s Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah, has posted nothing about Gaza on X since December. Yet such reticence may seem understandable given the example of the above-mentioned El Ghazi, the ex-Dutch international who was released by German club Mainz on 3 November for “comments and posts” about the Gaza conflict on social media.
Mainz originally suspended him in mid-October, saying he had posted and then deleted a message about the war that they deemed “unacceptable.” He shared a post which included the phrase “from the river to the sea” – a contentious pro-Palestine slogan – but has denied this was the reason his contract was terminated and is currently suing the Bundesliga club in a case which is set to conclude in June.
Similar situations, it should be added, have arisen with Israeli players, notably when defender Sagiv Jehezkel left Turkey’s Antalyaspor in January after celebrating a goal by revealing, on a bandage on his arm, the Star of David and a reference to the hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October.
A sympathetic view of El Ghazi’s situation comes from Katarina Pijetlovic, a sports law expert forced to leave her role as general secretary of the Union of European Clubs in October after a row over social-media posts highlighting the Palestinians’ plight.
“Now you can see how political football actually is,” argues Pijetlovic, who is supporting the Palestinian FA in its call for Fifa to impose sanctions on Israel. “It should be obvious to anybody what’s going on. You look at [Lionel] Messi and [David] Beckham and ask why on earth they’ve been silent as Unicef ambassadors.
“Beckham was quite outspoken on Ukraine and for the children of Ukraine but why be a Unicef ambassador if you’re going to speak only when white kids are killed?” For the record, in the wake of Israel’s bombing of safe areas in Rafah, a Gaza-related Instagram story from Unicef did appear on Beckham’s account this week.
A Palestinian perspective comes from national team footballer Mohammed Bassim Rashid who, viewing Europe from afar, tells i he sees a double standard in Arsenal’s Oleksandr Zinchenko talking about the war in Ukraine when his Belgium-based Palestine team-mate Oday Dabbagh is instructed to say nothing political.
In this context, it is interesting to cite the example from one Premier League club where players have received no other direction than a single message to the squad WhatsApp group reminding them, ahead of the period of silence for victims on both sides of the conflict on 21-22 October, that they represented a football club with a worldwide reach and fans of all faiths and backgrounds.
According to an experienced sports lawyer, another factor for players to consider are sponsors, whose contracts tend to stipulate that no actions are committed that may offend the sensibilities of a significant group in society.
To return to those footballers helping raise funds for children in Gaza this weekend, there have been similar games held in Qatar, says Palestine midfielder Bassim, but “this one is more special because it’s taking place in England. It is very important because it’s bringing more attention to the situation. Many times there’s been bombing and war in my lifetime and I’ve never seen the world moved like this. It’s a lot different than before.”
That said, he cannot but question the cost, which, among the Gazan football community alone, surpasses 200 deaths. Among those killed is his friend Noor Al-Kurd, a goalkeeper who was studying for a Physical Education degree.
“Sometimes I forget and I still call him on WhatsApp,” he admits. “It’s really good to see that many football players are standing with the cause but at what cost? This is what bothers me most. Why did it have to go to this much death and hurt and destruction? For me, the cost is really not worth it.”