The giant flags, unfurled about five minutes before kick-off, had nothing to do with the two teams about to play a match that would help determine qualification for next year’s World Cup, the biggest event in world football.
As the Norwegian and Israeli teams prepared to take the field on Saturday night (11), Norwegian fans raised a Palestinian tricolor flag and a banner that said “Let the Children Live”. Moments later, as Israel’s players lined up and their national anthem played, some in the home crowd booed and whistled.
The scene and a pregame protest march attended by about 1,500 people were examples of how the world’s most popular sport has become a venue for demonstrations against Israel’s conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip. They are likely to persist even after a ceasefire takes effect, which mediators hope will bring an end to the two-year war. Israeli football officials expect more protests at the next World Cup qualifying match in Udine, northern Italy, on Tuesday (14).
“This is our reality today,” Israel goalkeeper Daniel Peretz said after conceding every goal in a humiliating 5-0 defeat for his team.
From a football point of view, the match was of a high level. It was heralded as one of the most important in the history of Norwegian football, putting the country one victory away from returning to the men’s World Cup after almost 30 years.
However, many Norwegian football officials and fans have long been outspoken about Israeli participation in the World Cup and saw the match as an opportunity to highlight their message. Norway’s football federation announced months earlier that it would donate proceeds from Saturday’s match to Doctors Without Borders for humanitarian work in Gaza. A team sponsor said he would also donate 300,000 euros (R$1.9 million).
In a corner of Andy’s Pub, a football-themed bar in Oslo, about half a dozen men from Tromso, a city near the Arctic Circle, were drinking pre-match beers and dressed in Norwegian shirts from the 1990s, when the team last played in the World Cup. But they were missing one of their regulars. Ronny Jordness, 55, said his brother Kurt was boycotting the game.
“I tried to convince him that all the money goes to Gaza, so he should come, but I still couldn’t,” Jordness said.
Israeli officials were frustrated that the Norwegians highlighted the game for the charitable donation, and reporters traveling with the team aggressively questioned Lise Klaveness, Norway’s football president, about this and other issues in a heated press conference the day before the game.
Israeli officials were frustrated that the Norwegians had chosen the game for the charitable donation, and reporters traveling with the team aggressively questioned Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian football federation, about the matter and other issues in a heated interview on the eve of the game.
Klaveness has been the target of Israeli outrage. She stated that Israel should be banned from world football, as Russia has been since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She accused Israel of violating the rules of FIFA (the International Football Federation), the sport’s governing body, including with teams from its professional football league playing in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and criticized FIFA for taking almost two years to investigate the matter.
The donation, Klaveness said in an interview in his office on Saturday, was made in part to convince Norwegians that it was acceptable to support his team. “We knew there would be a very strong political context for the game and people in Norway would find it very difficult to come to the game and support Norway,” she said.
Outside in Oslo, organizers of a pro-Palestinian protest held a rally to begin a 90-minute march through the city to the stadium. They drew support from passersby who applauded from apartment windows and from vehicles that had stopped to let them pass.
Organizers said the Gaza ceasefire agreement was not enough. Under the plan, Hamas agreed to release the remaining hostages it captured during its October 7, 2023 attack, in exchange for the return of Palestinian prisoners and the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops.
The security operation for the game, which included a no-fly zone over the stadium and road closures, was the largest for any sporting event in Norway since the country hosted the Winter Olympics in 1994. The 60-person Israeli delegation included 16 security officers. Outside, police arrested more than 20 protesters.
Other Israeli teams have faced anti-Semitic attacks since the start of the war. Dozens of people were arrested in Amsterdam in November for what authorities described as anti-Semitic attacks on fans of the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv, as well as vandalism and inflammatory behavior by both sides, including anti-Arab chants.
While Norwegian football officials have long called for action against Israel, other countries have moved in that direction more recently as opinion in Europe on the Gaza conflict has begun to shift more decisively against Israel.
In recent weeks, reports began to emerge that European football leaders were moving to block Israeli teams from participating in competitions. Israeli teams traditionally play against national organizations and European clubs. Talks about a meeting to decide on a possible ban began to intensify, Klaveness said.
Then, President Donald Trump announced a comprehensive peace plan alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pressured Hamas to agree to it. In addition to the main diplomatic implications, the plan eased the intense discussions to ban Israeli football teams.
“There was a real movement to have a meeting,” Klaveness said. “But then the peace talks started, and everything cooled down.”
Football managers were also affected. Protesters appeared outside the homes of Italian football federation president Gabriele Gravina and national team coach Gennaro Gattuso. Gattuso said last week that he expected more protesters outside the Friuli Stadium in Udine than fans inside for Tuesday’s knockout match between Israel and Italy.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino, a Trump ally, last week sought to calm fan opposition to Israel.
“Now there is a ceasefire; everyone should be happy about it,” Infantino said on the sidelines of a meeting of European football executives in Rome. “Everyone should support this process.”
As the game in Oslo neared its end, with Norwegian fans jubilant and on the verge of returning to the World Cup, a megaphone that had been used to start chants for Norway was handed to a man in a kaffiyeh, a symbol of the Palestinian resistance movement. Moments later, the words “Free Palestine” echoed.
