May 29 – With Palestine’s appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against FIFA’s decision not to act against Israeli football teams in the West Bank currently working its way through sport’s judicial system, a new investigative report has been released outlining the industrial scale of the football ecosystem that has been created by Israeli settlors in the occupied West Bank.
It details how the game is being used politically to create community and normalise the theft of land. It also shows how FIFA has been repeatedly complicit in facilitating the breaches of its own statutes by facilitating the game in the illegal settlements despite having formal complaints before it from the Palestinian FA. FIFA (and UEFA’s) statutes prohibit member associations from playing games in another member’s territory without that member’s approval.
The investigation, carried out by the advocacy group Scottish Sport for Palestine and released this month, paints the picture of a football infrastructure that has moved well beyond occasional grassroots games. The illegal settlement clubs in West Bank have built stadiums on stolen land, have had pathways opened for them to progress to Israel’s premier division, play in UEFA competitions and receive millions of euros in funding from the UEFA Foundation and the US government.
The settlor teams have become so embedded in the Israeli league structure that FIFA’s flagship streaming channel FIFA+ has even been broadcasting their games.
The report also finds that “evidence further suggests that La Liga may have financially supported a visit from one settlement club to its headquarters, as well as a tour of Spanish clubs – including Atlético Madrid’s facilities – in 2023.”
“Far from threatening the Israel FA’s place in international football, the illegal settlement clubs have been granted complete impunity to expand, while Israel’s government effectively uses them as political anchors to cement Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied West Bank,” says the report.
“Inclusion of these clubs into UEFA and FIFA’s structures therefore legitimises Israel’s occupation of Palestine and Syria, and likely encourages settlement growth. Accordingly, on 16 February 2026, the Presidents of FIFA and UEFA were formally accused in a filing submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) of assisting in war crimes (the transfer of civilian population into occupied territories) and crimes against humanity (apartheid).”
In 2016 Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported there were nine illegal Israeli settlement clubs located on Palestinian land beyond the 1949 Armistice border (commonly referred to as the ‘Green Line’) in the West Bank. The new report finds that in 2026, a tenth club has been added. Most of the clubs have registered offices in the West Bank, while seven of them play their home games in these illegal settlements.
The report finds that all of the still-active clubs investigated by HRW in 2016 have grown in size. There are also now three Israeli clubs playing in the Golan Heights in occupied Syria.
So embedded have the settlor clubs been allowed to become within FIFA and UEFA frameworks they have even developed a transfer system where it is permitted to transfer players into an occupied territory, contrary to international law.
The report finds that there are 75 Illegal settlement teams that field players who came from both within the settlements and other parts of Israel. In 2018, half of Ironi Ariel’s players were reported to be settlers there while the rest of the players were recruited from outside the settlement.
The recruitment even extends to overseas players. While playing games in Har Homa, Hapo’el (Katamon) Jerusalem’s women’s team fielded five foreign players from Ghana, Brazil and Nigeria.
The report details multiple testimonies from Palestinian landowners who had their land – previously used for farming – forcibly taken for ‘security purposes’ or ‘for public use’, but which now has been used for the construction of football pitches.
The report argues that: “FIFA and UEFA’s inclusion of illegal settlement clubs within their structures provides employment opportunities for settlers – making the settlements more sustainable… all illegal settlement clubs pay their coaches. F.C. Jerusalem – whose men’s team plays in league A in Har Homa, East Jerusalem – will also pay its players a modest salary. While Hapo’el (Katamon) Jerusalem’s women’s team was playing its home games in Har Homa, player salaries averaged $1,600 a month.”
The professional and semi-professional infrastructure also sees clubs reportedly providing players with free accommodation, which the report authors say further incentivises players to live in illegal settlements close to training grounds.
“Lower league clubs like Ironi Ariel – whose men play in League C – also provide unspecified benefits to subsidise players. Illegal settlement clubs provide additional revenue to settlements by attracting visiting fans. This increase in visitors is clearly illustrated in an article by a fan discussing Hapo’el Katamon Jerusalem’s rise through the leagues as a breakaway club from Hapo’el Jerusalem, and the subsequent influx of supporters which flooded the settlements on match days.”
These conditions have fuelled a growth in the illegal settlor clubs. Hapo’el (Katamon) Jerusalem, which has a men and women’s team in Israel’s Premier League, is described in Israeli media as a ‘Cinderella story’, but the report argues that the “rise to top-flight football should really serve as a warning for the heights which illegal settlement clubs can reach when UEFA and FIFA’s leaders fail to protect the territorial integrity of the game.”
“Every club investigated in 2016 which is still active has since grown in size. The number of players and teams at Ironi Ariel, for example, has increased significantly year on year. A 2022 report on the club in Israeli media described football in Ariel as “booming”, with 400 children and teenage players alone. In 2025, a coach on the club’s social media suggested this figure had grown to 500 players,” finds the report.
The club is reportedly the largest in the occupied West Bank, with a waiting list for grass football in both Ariel and in the settlement of Alei Zahav, where it has expanded.
The report concludes: “Rather than threatening the Israel FA’s status within world football, it is evident today that illegal settlement clubs enjoy special treatment from Israel’s Premier League clubs and the highest protection from FIFA, UEFA and the Israeli and US government. Often under the guise of social inclusion initiatives, all of these organisations – and more – have helped to prop up and support these clubs over the years. This has helped facilitate their continued growth in parallel with the current and planned expansion of illegal settlements in occupied Palestine.”
To see the full report, click here.
Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]
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