National association football team for Mandatory Palestine
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The Mandatory Palestine national football team, also known as the Eretz Israel national football team (Hebrew: נבחרת ארץ ישראל בכדורגל, romanized: Nivheret Eretz Yisrael Bekhadurgel, lit. 'Land of Israel national football team'), represented the British Mandate of Palestine in international football competitions, and was managed by the Palestine Football Association (Hebrew: התאחדות ארץ ישראלית למשחק כדור-רגל, romanized: Hitachduth Eretz Yisraelit Lekhadur Regel, lit. 'The Land of Israel Association of Football').[a]
The team was founded in 1928 by Yosef Yekutieli, leader of the Jewish sports organisation Maccabi World Union, under the newly formed "Palestine Football Association", so-named in order to qualify for membership of FIFA (which required teams to be representative of the population of their country). It achieved FIFA membership in 1929, despite in practice being an almost exclusively Jewish organisation at a time when Jews represented a minority of the country's population. In 1934 all Arabs involved in the organisation left, as they considered they were being used as a "fig leaf".[2]
Mandatory Palestine during its tour in Egypt in 1931.
Football was introduced to Palestine by the British military during its occupation of the territory in World War I. After the war, the sport's development was continued by "European Jews who had been exposed to soccer in their native countries".[1] The Palestine Football Association was founded in August 1928 and applied for membership in FIFA. It was accepted to FIFA on 6 June 1929 as the Palestine Football Association, following an application by the Jewish Maccabi World Union.[3][4] It was the first of 14 sports organisations which absorbed hundreds of leading sportsmen who immigrated in the wake of antisemitism in Europe.[5]
By FIFA rules, the association had to represent all of Palestine's population, and it made formal claims to that effect. In practice, it was dominated by Jewish players and executives, despite Palestinian Arabs forming the majority of the population.[6]
According to Issam Khalidi, "the Jewish leadership" of the association systematically limited Arab participation by ensuring Jewish clubs constituted its majority, imposing Hebrew for official communication, and adding the Zionist flag in its logo.[7] Consequently, the Palestinian Arab players boycotted the national team and, in 1934, the Arab clubs left the association to form the General Palestinian Sports Association.[2][6][b]
Mandatory Palestine played five international games before the end of the British Mandate in 1948 which resulted in Israel's independence.[9] During those five games, the national team fielded only Jewish players. Three anthems were played before each match: the British "God Save the King", the Jewish (and future Israeli) "Hatikvah" and the opposing team's anthem.[10]
^According to the Israel Football Association, the name of the association was "Eretz Israel Football Association".[1]
^Richard Henshaw's encyclopaedia also noted that "Islamic beliefs throughout the Arab world resisted Western cultural institutions such as soccer until well after World War II, by which time Arab participation in the development of Israeli soccer was nearly impossible."[8]
^ abMendel, Yoni (1 May 2015). "The Palestinian soccer league: A microcosm of a national struggle". +972 Magazine. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 14 May 2020. The result was the birth of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) and the launch of the local league. It was not particularly equitable: Nine Jewish clubs and one British club (that of the British police) participated in the champions league, while the Arab clubs played only in the secondary league. Neither was the representation in the federation exceptionally fair: among the 15 members of the federation, 14 were Jewish and only one, the Jerusalemite referee Ibrahim Nusseibeh, was Arab. The inaugural meeting of the PFA, in 1928, was the first and last meeting which Nusseibeh attended. In 1934, in keeping with the prevailing segragationist trends in the country, the Arab football clubs decided they refuse to continue being the fig leaf within the framework of an overwhelmingly Jewish league, and left. A parallel, exclusively Arab football league was established a year later.
^Griver, Simon (June 1999). "Sports in Israel". Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Archived from the original on 22 June 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
^Khalidi, Issam (Spring 2014). "Sports and Aspirations: Football in Palestine, 1900–1948"(PDF). Jerusalem Quarterly. No. 58. pp. 74–89. Archived(PDF) from the original on 22 July 2020. Retrieved 14 May 2020. Immediately after being accepted into FIFA, the Jewish leadership of the PFA set about ensuring a majority of Jewish clubs in its membership. The Hebrew language was imposed and the Zionist flag incorporated into the federation's logo. By 1934, the dominance of Zionist officials meant that Arab clubs had no say in the running of the association, despite Arabs comprising over three-quarters of Palestine's population.
^"Statistical Kit: Preliminary Draw for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil"(PDF). FIFA. 28 June 2011. p. 53. Archived(PDF) from the original on 19 July 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2020. A Jewish delegation from Palestine (then a British mandate) played at the qualifying games for 1934 & 1938. It was the first Jewish national team, and as such the forerunner of Israel.
Sorek, Tamir (2003). "Palestinian Nationalism Has Left the Field: A Shortened History of Arab Soccer in Israel". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 35 (3): 417–437. doi:10.1017/S0020743803000175. JSTOR3880202. S2CID143912280.
For teams that have undergone name changes but no border alterations see here For teams that have undergone border changes but no name alterations see here
