A lawyer specializing in sports legislation Katarina Pijetlovic held in February at the international Play the Game conference speechwhose reception was unusually violent.
After the speech, some of the audience gave Pijetlovic a standing ovation and praised his courage. Some shouted that he was an unprofessional distorter of the truth.
At an event held in Trondheim, Norway, Pijetlovic called for the exclusion of Israel from international sports. He said the sports world has turned its back on Palestine.
– Every picture and video coming out of Gaza is shocking. It is heartbreaking to see what is happening to civilians and children. Someone had to raise the issue, Pijetlovic now says via video call to Urheilu.
Pijetlovic is not alone in his thoughts. International pressure on Israel has increased as the humanitarian disaster in Gaza has worsened. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk expressed his shock at the end of April at the destruction caused by Israeli attacks and the number of civilian casualties.
This has amplified critical voices in the sports world as well. In total, nearly 400,000 people have signed petitions calling for Israel to be banned from major sporting events.
Jordanian and West Asian Football Associations have demanded isolating Israeli clubs and players from international competition. In February, 26 representatives of the French left-wing parties your bet To the President of the International Olympic Committee to Thomas Bachso that Israel wouldn’t get to the Pasisi Olympics.
The Israel issue has put the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in a tough spot ahead of the July-August Paris Olympics.
The topic was strongly on the surface at the IOC board meeting in March. At the end of the meeting, Chairman Bach said that Israel’s status in the five ring games will not change.
The IOC has justified the decision by the fact that the Russian Olympic Committee has included territories belonging to Ukraine as part of its sports system. According to the IOC, the Israeli and Palestinian Olympic committees live in harmony and neither has demanded sanctions on the other.
Katarina Pijetlovic considers the arguments to be excuses.
– I keep in touch with people in Palestinian sports. The country’s Olympic Committee is located in the West Bank, where the Israeli army can shoot anyone it wants. Palestinian organizations are simply afraid to do anything, says Pijetlovic.
– Israel has established illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories, and the clubs of these settlements play in the Israeli football league. The settlement clubs play their home matches of the Israeli league in areas that belong to Palestine. It is completely against international rules, but the unions don’t care about this.
Pijetlovic reminds that throughout history the International Olympic Committee has sanctioned countries for human rights violations. Apartheid-era South Africa was closed to the Olympics for several years. The war in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s led to the isolation of the country from all international sports.
Pijetlovic believes that, unlike with Russia, sanctions could have an impact on Israel’s actions.
– Russia is in many ways self-sufficient and used to being the “bad guy” in world politics. With Israel, everything is different. Israel is completely dependent on the international community. If the country were to be closed from international sports, it would come as a shock to Israelis, he reasons.
The lawyer emphasizes that sports sanctions alone are not enough. According to him, sports should be part of a wider front that extends to commerce, culture and other fields.
– It could bring solutions and end the distress of civilians. Unfortunately, the international community is already late.
“The situation in Gaza comes close”
Katarina Pijetlovic was born and grew up in Bosnia, where people witnessed the horrors of the Balkan war up close. Pijetlovic’s father died in a rocket attack while returning home from work in August 1992. Pijetlovic was 13 years old at the time.
He admits that seeing the destruction in Gaza brings old traumas to the surface.
– For me, war is not just images on a screen or television screen. It is something genuine and very personal. The situation in Gaza comes close. Regardless of what happened in Israel on October 7, nothing justifies the killing of tens of thousands of civilians.
Pijetlovic visited Palestine for the first time in 2006. He says he understood then the kind of trap and plight the Palestinians were living in.
– I spent time in both Palestine and Israel. I talked to people on both sides. The Israelis also had the idea that what they were doing to the Palestinians was not right.
Security concerns are growing
Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, which starts this weekend, has been the subject of great controversy, but it is small compared to the controversy going on in sports.
Tensions are rising as the Paris Olympics approach. Experts familiar with the situation in the Middle East have warned that the war in Gaza will increase security threats at the Games.
Israel has multiplied its security budget for the games and prepared for boycotts if the country’s representatives meet athletes from Arab countries on the competition fields.
The vulnerability of the situation has already been seen in international sports in many ways.
Demonstrators against Israel clashed with the police in Skien, Norway, when Norway faced Israel at the end of March in the European Championship qualifier for U19 football teams.
Earlier in March, a young man carrying the Palestinian flag was badly beaten in Athens. According to the Greek media, it was the supporters of the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv.
In February, the Irish women’s national basketball team refused to shake hands with members of the Israeli team before a European Championship qualifier in Riga. The Israeli team had accused the Irish players of anti-Semitism.
Katarina Pijetlovic says that the IOC and the International Football Federation, Fifa, should exclude Israel from their activities already for security reasons.
– When Russia was banned from sports, the IOC, Fifa and others argued that the safety of sporting events cannot be guaranteed if Russians are involved. But now the situation is even more explosive. There is a lot of anger, protest and activism in the world because of the situation in the Middle East.
– The current situation can lead to big fights, even deaths. If that happens, it will be on the conscience of Fifa, UEFA and the IOC.
Pijetlovic also has a strong connection to Finland, as he studied for a master’s degree and later a doctorate at the University of Helsinki. His field of specialization was sports legislation in the EU.
The lawyer has personally noticed how difficult the Middle East crisis is.
At the end of last year, he was in a leading position in the European football union UEC (Union of European Clubs), which he founded. It is an organization representing medium-sized and small European clubs. After the Gaza war began, Pijetlovic fell into disfavor in the union because he publicly criticized Israel’s actions.
He resigned or was made to resign, depending on who you ask.
– I would rather leave the organization than stop talking about Gaza. Nothing I said was hateful or false, says Pijetlovic.
He says that he is disappointed by the passivity of the European community.
– Many sports associations would like to do something, but they don’t want to be left alone. Someone has to be first, though. I would like the Finnish Olympic Committee and other Nordic organizations to play that role.
Chairman of the Finnish Olympic Committee Jan Vapaavuori describes the situation in Gaza as a humanitarian disaster. However, Finland is not going to boycott Israel on the sports front.
– We are trying to follow largely the same lines as Finland’s foreign policy leadership. We do not take a different line than the president, parliament or government, says Vapaavuori.
Urheilu tried to get an interview with a representative of the Israeli Olympic Committee for the story. The organization did not respond to ‘s interview requests.