Palestinians Cancel FIFA Chief’s Visit After Muslim Cemetery Event

Date: 13 October 2021 - 21:39

News ID: ۹۵۳۹۱

WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Palestinian football officials have cancelled a meeting with FIFA president Gianni Infantino, following his attendance at an event in a building atop a Muslim cemetery in occupied Al-Quds.
Infantino met on Tuesday with Zionist prime minister Naftali Bennett, and Steven Mnuchin and David Friedman, former U.S. officials in Donald Trump’s administration, to discuss the idea of the Zionist regime and Arab countries co-hosting the football World Cup in 2030.
Infantino made the announcement in a conference in the so-called Museum of Tolerance, built atop Mamilla Islamic cemetery in Al-Quds.
Infantino’s visit to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to meet Jibril Rajoub, the president of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) and the Olympic Committee, was called off at the last minute.
The PFA said in a statement that it “regrets” Infantino’s decision to attend an event “in the so-called ‘Museum of Tolerance’, an edifice built over the Ma’man Allah Islamic cemetery, the oldest Muslim burial site in Al-Quds, dating back to the 11th century, along with Zionist Evangelicals and former officials of U.S. administration of [Trump]”.
The PFA sent a letter to the FIFA president, setting out the “dangers” of politicizing sport and “supporting Zionist evangelical groups which are outspoken in their denial of basic rights of Palestinian people and their call to breach the international law…
“Building a museum in this site violates the sanctity of a cemetery that contains the remains of [the Prophet Mohammed’s] companions and Muslim scholars, who were buried in this Islamic endowment land over hundreds of years of Jerusalem’s history,” the PFA statement said.