‘Football is the first domino’: #GameOverIsrael campaign manager sheds light on how to stop genocide

A prolific rights activist and campaign manager of the #GameOverIsrael drive that seeks to expel Israeli teams from international football, calls the sport the “first domino” that could go considerably far in stopping the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Ashish Prashar made the remarks to Press TV’s Face to Face program on Thursday, drawing on the precedent of South Africa’s sports boycott during apartheid.

“Football is the first domino,” he said, adding that triggering the regime’s ostracism across global football would set off a knock-on effect that would contribute extensively to cessation of the October 2023-genocide.

Upon successfully targeting the Israeli teams, the regime’s Olympics presence and participation in other international sports would also suffer and then cultural institutions would act to ban Israeli presence or contribution, he said.

“Eurovision is going as we speak. [Then] art will go. Other things will go. If football goes, the cultural dominoes are huge.”

“There should be no normalization in abnormal times,” Prashar said. “And what is more normal than people playing football?”

‘No more sportswashing of genocide’

While calls to suspend the regime from sport have circulated for decades, Prashar said, FIFA and UEFA have refused to act, choosing instead to “sportswash genocide.”

He denounced FIFA President Gianni Infantino as “immoral” and a “friend of [US President] Donald Trump” who ignores Palestinian suffering.

Methodology

According to Prashar, instead of lobbying FIFA, the campaign is seeking to target federation heads directly.

According to the campaign head, federation leaders can unilaterally block matches, ban clubs, and refuse entry to players.

“You can target someone who is an accessible person in your country and demand they take action to get these genocidal players out,” he said.

He, therefore, urged daily pressure, emails, protests at offices and stadiums, and even outside executives’ homes.

The activist, meanwhile, underlined the importance of organizing those seeking the regime’s expulsion.

“They are scared of you… We are the power,” he insisted.

Beyond symbolism

Prashar rejected token gestures, citing the Norwegian federation manager’s decision to wear keffiyeh, a Palestinian headscarf, while still hosting an Israeli match.

“At this point, they are complicit,” he said. Instead, he called for coordinated action across nations. “Do it again as 12 nations, or nine, or eight. UEFA and FIFA are not going to punish all of you as a collective. Could you imagine them throwing Spain, the number one team in football, out of the World Cup for Israel?”

The activist went on to say that the campaign’s aim were practical and immediate, namely stopping the regime’s upcoming fixtures against Italy and Norway, barring its clubs from European competitions, and expel Israeli players from Europe.

The urgency of the campaign, he noted, was underscored by the massacres and devastation in Gaza, where the genocide has so far claimed the lives of more than 65,200 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Prashar, meanwhile, advised strongly against delaying implementation of the campaign, saying, unlike apartheid South Africa, where oppressors still relied on Black labor, the Israeli occupation seeks extermination of every last Palestinian. “They are killing people en masse. No more playing the long game because there will be no one left to play the long game for.”

The power of the people

The campaign relies on ordinary people, not celebrities, he reiterated. “Malcolm X always used to say celebrities are puppets,” Prashar warned, and noted, “The actual power to make this happen isn’t Mohamed Salah, it’s the people. If the people are there every day outside that federation, that federation will buckle and break.”

He pointed to the chants already ringing in European stadiums, saying PSG fans have begun singing Nous Enfants de Gaza (We are the children of Gaza), now echoed across the continent.

Mass protests, unions threatening strikes, and grassroots mobilization, therefore, form the backbone of the campaign, he stated.

The international campaign owes its driving force, among others, to renowned former footballers and football support groups.

It strives to make some of the countries priding themselves on trailblazing football history, including England, France, Italy, and Spain, to suspend the Israeli team.

The countries are also expected to ban Israeli club sides from continental competition and prevent Israeli players from joining domestic leagues.

Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Norway, and Scotland are the rest of the nations that the campaign seeks to bring pressure to bear on towards realizing the purpose.

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