A pro-Palestinian advocacy group has called for the immediate cancellation of a UEFA Champions League qualifying match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Pafos FC scheduled to take place in Cyprus.
United for Palestine – Limassol issued a statement on Thursday expressing opposition to hosting the Israeli team, citing the genocide in Gaza since October 2023.
The group stated that whilst UEFA has prohibited Israeli teams from hosting matches due to “security concerns,” allowing them to compete abroad “whitewashes the reality of a regime engaged in war crimes, genocide, and occupation.”
The organisation has made three specific demands: the cancellation of the game, full suspension of Israeli clubs from UEFA and international competitions similar to Russian clubs, and respect for Cyprus’s “own history of occupation and division by rejecting normalisation with regimes of aggression.”
“Playing on a neutral pitch does not mean the crime is over—it is proof the perpetrator is still free,” the statement read.
The group claimed that over 150 Palestinian athletes have been killed, with countless others injured or disabled, and dozens of sports facilities destroyed, though these figures could not be independently verified.
The statement characterised the match as “not just a sports event” but “a political endorsement,” arguing that hosting the team represents an “insult to the values of fair play, justice, and human dignity.”
The group asserted that Cyprus should not allow its stadiums to be used “as platforms to whitewash war crimes through sport.”
UEFA banned international matches from being played within Israel due to security concerns, therefore, Israeli teams have been required to play their “home” matches at neutral venues.
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