Image caption: Karam, a football athlete in Gaza who shared his testimony with us about being shot by Israeli forces while waiting for aid. His hand and foot were injured in the attack. He may never play football again.

 

John,

This is the moment we’ve been waiting for to finally hold Israel to account on the world stage for its horrific crimes in Gaza.

After facing growing pressure to ban Israel from football competitions, FIFA said it would seek legal advice and hold a rare council meeting to decide what to do.

Now the special meeting is just weeks away – and it’s a race against the clock to make sure FIFA does the right thing.

First, we’ll hire a lawyer to submit a legal brief on why FIFA must stand against Israel’s atrocities. Then we’ll deliver the voices of more than 360,000 Ekō members who signed a petition demanding Israel be banned from competition with a powerful message projected onto FIFA headquarters to show decision-makers that the world is watching.

This is about more than sports – it’s about FINALLY starting to hold Israel’s government accountable for the horrors in Gaza. John, can you chip in?

I'll donate $3I'll donate $4 I'll donate $5I'll donate $9I'll donate another amount

It’s huge we’ve gotten this far. After years of refusing to take a stand on Israel’s treatment of Palestineans, earlier this year FIFA finally said they wanted independent legal advice on whether Israel should be allowed to play.

After reviewing the legal submissions, its main decision-making body, the FIFA Council, will finally decide what to do in July.

The Council is made up of 37 senior officials from around the world. So we have a plan to make sure they feel the pressure by bringing our message straight to their meeting, playing a powerful short film that shows wounded and killed athletes in Gaza to make it impossible to ignore the horrific crimes committed by Israel.

Israel cares about its reputation – and football. If we can show its government that the world will not stand by and allow it to compete as usual while it continues its relentless assault on Gaza, it could finally change its calculus.

But we just have a matter of days to pull this off. For this to work, we need the Ekō community to make as big of a splash as possible right now. Can you chip in to make this happen?

I'll donate $3I'll donate $4 I'll donate $5I'll donate $9I'll donate another amount

We know that pressure works. After Israel's 9-day siege on Gaza in 2021, 140,000 Ekō members called one of the world’s biggest sports brands, PUMA, to drop its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association. And thanks to our collective pressure, and the tireless work of Palestinian solidarity activists over the years, PUMA announced it ended its relationship with Israel’s football federation last year, months after Israel’s current invasion.

Together, we can do it again.