A coming filing with the ICC accuses FIFA’s Gianni Infantino and UEFA’s Aleksander Čeferin of crimes against humanity for their financial support of settlement clubs.
Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, presents the FIFA Peace Prize to President Donald Trump during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on December 5, 2025, in Washington, DC.(Emilee Chinn / FIFA via Getty Images)
It’s likely you heard the surreal news that FIFA President Gianni Infantino awarded Donald Trump a “Peace Prize” amid the backdrop of protest outside the Kennedy Center.
It’s less likely that you heard about a far more serious announcement the previous week: that Infantino will be formally accused of aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.
The ICC filing parties will include a group of Palestinian footballers, Palestinian clubs, land owners, and advocacy groups Irish Sport for Palestine, Scottish Sport for Palestine, and Just Peace Advocates, with support from an expert legal team.
According to a public statement from the filing parties, Infantino, as well as Union of European Football Association President Aleksander Čeferin, are facing accusations that FIFA and UEFA funded settlement clubs—that is, football clubs that operate on land illegally seized from Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. “FIFA and UEFA permit these clubs to play in leagues organised by the Israel Football Association and host matches on the seized land,” the coalition contends. “They also provide financial and structural support to settlement clubs, some of which have played in the UEFA-organised competitions.”
The filing parties write that FIFA and UEFA’s financial support of these clubs legitimizes Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, which contributes to “the transfer of civilian population into occupied territories contrary to the Rome Statute art 8(2)(b)(viii)” and “aids and abets apartheid (a crime against humanity pursuant to Rome Statute art 7(1)(j)).”
“Not only is this establishing clubs on land stolen from Palestinians,” Rebecca O’Keeffe, with Irish Sport for Palestine, told The Nation, “but it also means that Palestinians cannot access these clubs, cannot access playing, supporting, watching anything in these areas. And that is apartheid. UEFA and FIFA are breaching their own statutes against territorial integrity and jurisdiction.”
“This is historic,” continued O’Keeffe. “This is the first time in history that leaders of the sports associations are being accused of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity. It shows these leaders of sports institutions that their decisions in relation to illegal settlement clubs may carry severe legal consequences. Hopefully it sets a much-needed precedent and also a first step towards imposing sanctions on the Israeli Football Association.”
The filing is historic, but it shouldn’t be necessary.
From 1961 to 1992, FIFA banned apartheid South Africa from competing. More recently, after the invasion of Ukraine, FIFA and UEFA banned Russia from competing, prompting a chorus of critics—considering efforts to ban apartheid Israel dating back as far as 1958—to say: “Now do Israel.”
Then, one week after being accused of crimes against humanity, Infantino awarded Trump the bogus “Peace Prize.” These kinds of sycophantic displays—including when Trump bent over backward to flatter Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman—will only spur more people to oppose him and his twisted ethics. Many of them are turning out to champion the formal ICC filing. “We have huge support for this initiative from the international sporting community,” said O’Keefe. “We have had new filing parties join every day, and we just made the initiative public.”
O’Keeffe added that this support came despite widespread corporate media censorship of the ICC announcement, and that she remained hopeful that the international sporting community can play a key role as it once did to help end South African apartheid. “FIFA is a cultural dominant force,” said O’Keeffe. “It has commercial domination. FIFA earns more revenue than some countries earn GDP. We have to understand that.”
Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets.
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One can argue Trump understands this as much as anyone—which is why he always makes sure that Infantino has a place at his feet. And yet, their open embrace of each other makes the case against Infantino that much easier. He shamelessly genuflects before the man who armed the last year of the Gaza genocide and is currently complicit in its ethnic cleansing.
In other words, don’t expect Infantino to call character witnesses.
Dave ZirinDave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation. He is the author of 11 books on the politics of sports. He is also the coproducer and writer of the new documentary Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL.
Chuck ModianoTwitterChuck Modiano is a DC-based “people’s journalist” who likes to talk sports, film police, and amplify voices otherwise ignored by the media. He co-hosts The Collision on WPFW in DC and is contributing author to Killing Trayvons.