The Palestine Chronicle, October 12, 2022

Pro-Palestine activists in Uruguay celebrated a major victory on Wednesday as their country’s football team officially announced that they were not going to play in Israel as was previously scheduled.

In a statement, a copy of which was sent to The Palestine Chronicle, the Uruguayan group,  Coordinación por Palestina (Coordination for Palestine), said that Uruguay’s Football Association (AUF) announced that it is not going to Israel following intense pressure. 

“In these months, the AUF received four letters from Palestinian football clubs and associations, explaining the continuous and serious aggressions that Israel commits against Palestinian football and sports,” the group said.

Good News!

Uruguay’s national football team will NOT be playing in Apartheid Israel.

This comes following a campaign calling on AUF (Uruguay Football Association) not to break the Israel sports boycott#Africa4Palestine salutes Coordinación por Palestina & all Uruguayan orgs👏 pic.twitter.com/wiTXHWHFbl

— #Africa4Palestine (@Africa4Pal) October 12, 2022

The many messages sent to the AUF included a letter from a former coach of the Palestinian national football team, from musician Roger Waters, along with several Palestinian intellectuals, including The Palestine Chronicle editor and author Dr. Ramzy Baroud.

“We are deeply grateful for all the solidarity and support received from so many territories and people,” the group concluded.

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From The the Coordinación por Palestina team: “As we said when we launched the campaign, we do not want the celeste T-shirt to be used to whitewash Israeli apartheid or to cover up its serious violations of human and collective rights of the Palestinian people.

We based our statement on the letter we delivered on June 3 at the AUF (Uruguay’s Football Association) headquarters, with the signature of more than 20 social, human rights and football-related organizations in our country.

In these months, the AUF received four letters from Palestinian football clubs and associations explaining the continuous and serious aggressions that Israel commits against Palestinian football and sports, plus countless messages from organizations around the world asking the national team not to lend itself to whitewash Israel’s crimes through football.

The many messages sent to the AUF include: from a former coach of the Palestinian national football team, from musician Roger Waters, from Jewish anti-Zionist groups in several countries, from religious institutions, from human rights organizations and solidarity groups from five continents, and from territories as far away as Palestine/Israel, South Africa, India, Canada, USA, Europe, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Turkey, and from our own region. We are deeply grateful for all the solidarity and support received from so many territories and people!

We hope that these messages have been read and heard by the national team players and the AUF leadership; and we are hopeful that they will be taken into account in the future. Because as we said from day one: you cannot play with apartheid.”

For a FREE PALESTINE, URUGUAY DOES NOT GO!