GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The FIFA Congress decided on June 11 to form a neutral committee to monitor Israeli violations against Palestinian sports, but fell short of punishing Israel. The committee will submit its report in a meeting in Morocco in December. Despite expectations, it didn’t turn out to be the day to punish Israel for violations against Palestinian soccer and other sports, FIFA regulations and the Olympic Charter.

Maj. Gen. Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Football Federation, did not abide by his promise in mid-May not to hesitate to ask the FIFA Congress, which will meet in Sao Paulo this month on the sidelines of the World Cup in Brazil, to vote on expelling Israel from the organization.

Ibrahim Abu Salim, the deputy head of the Palestinian Football Federation, told Al-Monitor in a phone conversation from Sao Paulo in the early hours of June 12, “I want to be frank. Unfortunately, the general atmosphere didn’t help the Palestinian delegation to introduce a resolution expelling Israel or freezing its membership to vote. … The delegations that were supposed to support Palestine in case the issue of expelling Israel was raised — such as some Arab, Islamic and friendly delegations — advised us to not put forward that request now for fear that the vote will fail. The vote requires 75% of the participating countries and if it happens now, the request may fail rather than be postponed until next year.”

He stressed the importance of including on FIFA’s agenda Israel’s violations against Palestinian sports and repeated the condemnation by FIFA's president Joseph Blatter of Israeli practices in his last speech to the FIFA Congress.