It was at around 8am almost a fortnight ago that Israel’s World Cup fate just might have been sealed. That was the moment it emerged the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory had found the Israeli government had committed “genocide” in its response to the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on the country.

Uefa’s headquarters on the usually tranquil shores of Lake Geneva reverberated with the news that could result in Israel’s suspension from European football as early as this week. The organisation and its president, Aleksander Ceferin, had long been resisting pressure to adopt such a course of action, including from within its own executive committee (ExCo) and member associations. But following the findings from a near two-year UN investigation into the war in Gaza, everything changed.

Uefa vote could be ‘days’ away

“It was a gradual thing but it exploded after the report,” a senior Uefa figure told Telegraph Sport about the clamour within football for Israel to join Russia in being exiled from the sport. A vote by the ExCo could be staged within days that may throw World Cup qualifying – and possibly the finals itself – into chaos, as well as risking the wrath of a certain Donald Trump.

That is because although football’s flagship event is organised by Fifa, and not Uefa, the qualification rounds are almost exclusively Continental affairs. If Israel are suspended from European football, it appears unthinkable that their qualification group opponents would not support such a ban. Those opponents include Italy and Norway, whose respective FA presidents, Gabriele Gravina and Lise Klaveness, both sit on the ExCo. The duo could yet face pressure to recuse themselves from any vote on sanctioning Israel, along with the president of the Israel Football Association (IFA), who was elected onto the ExCo in April.

Back then, the IFA still enjoyed enough support among Uefa’s 55 member associations for Moshe Zuares to win such an election. That was even after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity for Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, both of whom deny such accusations. The ICC issued a similar warrant for Mohammed Deif, the Hamas commander from the October 7 attacks, who it later transpired had already been killed in an Israeli air strike.

Salah calls out Uefa

It was not until Mohamed Salah, the Liverpool and Egypt forward, intervened that Uefa’s stance began to harden over Israel’s military response to the worst terrorist attack in its history. On August 8, the day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to take control of Gaza City, Uefa posted a tribute on X to Suleiman al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pelé”.

According to the Palestinian Football Association (PFA), he was killed two days earlier when Israeli forces opened fire on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid. The social-media post made no mention of the circumstances of his death, prompting Salah to reply: “Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?”