‘Worst gift ever’: Global calls mount to boycott Reebok over sponsorship tied to Israeli settlements

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

When a global sportswear name appears on the kit of a regime waging a genocidal war, the sneakers in shop windows stop being just shoes — they become symbols.

Reebok, an American footwear and clothing brand, is finding itself at the center of a growing international storm over its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA).

For Palestinian athletes and human-rights campaigners, the deal crosses a line: a multinational brand is lending prestige — and heaps of money — to an association embedded in an occupation that kills and displaces Palestinians daily in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The result has been a coordinated global call for a boycott and a “Day of Action” on November 22, urging consumers to turn their purchases into political pressure.

The protest comes as Israel continues its bombardment of the besieged Palestinian territories despite a declared “ceasefire,” resulting in the deaths of civilians, including women and children.

Since October 7, 2023, nearly 70,000 Palestinians have been killed, with tens of thousands more still trapped under the rubble and unaccounted for. 

Calls to boycott Israeli sports, particularly football, continue to gain momentum, as nearly 1,000 Palestinian athletes have been killed over the past two years.

Global sports governing bodies, despite mounting pressure, have so far refused to suspend Israel.

Why boycott Reebok?

In February 2025, it was reported that Reebok had signed a two-year deal with the IFA, which includes local football league teams based in the illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

For 77 years, the Israeli apartheid regime has expelled Palestinian families, including children, to make way for these illegal settlements, which are not recognized under international law.

The International Court of Justice last year ruled that Israel’s entire occupation of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including East al-Quds, is illegal and violates the prohibition against apartheid.

Israeli settlement construction constitutes a war crime under international law and the issue has often come up in UN discussions and has even been condemned by the Tel Aviv regime's Western allies.

The IFA has long worked hand-in-hand with the Israeli regime to uphold these settlements and shield the occupation from accountability.

Israeli football team, which represents the IFA’s public face, has dedicated matches and sent care packages to Israeli occupation soldiers involved in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The IFA recently launched a “Reservist League,” composed of 32 local teams and hundreds of soldiers who have participated in the war in Gaza and have blood on their hands.

Since the launch of the Gaza genocidal war in October 2023, the Israeli military has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, including more than 1,000 athletes. 

The onslaught has devastated Gaza, displacing its 2.3 million residents multiple times, with the Israeli regime deliberately starving civilians by blocking humanitarian aid.

Gaza sporticide

As part of Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Israel is also committing sporticide.

Israel has killed over 1,000 Palestinian athletes and destroyed sports facilities in Gaza, including stadiums, gyms and club facilities, some of which were used as detention and torture camps.

However, this is not new. For decades, Israel has bombed Palestinian stadiums, restricted athletes’ movement, and imprisoned or shot players, even children, for engaging in sports activities.

Palestinian athletes are regularly prevented from training and participating in competitions, at home and abroad.

In 2018, Israeli snipers ended the careers of dozens of Palestinian athletes in Gaza during peaceful protests demanding an end to the siege and the right of return.

A UN Commission of Inquiry at the time found that Israeli regime soldiers intentionally targeted Palestinians participating in the demonstrations, actions amounting to war crimes.

In September 2016, Members of the European Parliament called on FIFA to act against Israeli clubs based in settlements in the occupied West Bank and prevent them from participating in officially sanctioned play.

In October 2016, Wilfried Lemke, the UN special adviser on sport for development and peace, wrote to FIFA to reiterate that the UN regards Israeli settlements – and by extension Israeli football teams that play in them – to be “without validity” and “illegal under international law.”

In April 2017, over a hundred sports associations, unions, and rights organizations from 28 countries called on FIFA to suspend Israel if it failed to revoke the affiliation of seven settlement clubs.

In 2024, the Palestine Football Association formally proposed Israel’s expulsion from FIFA, backed by the Asian Football Confederation. Yet FIFA delayed, citing a need for “independent legal assessment,” a move widely seen as a stalling tactic.

The IFA has lobbied FIFA, the football governing body that organizes football events all over the world, continuously to block accountability measures for Israel’s attacks on Palestinian sports.

Despite years of condemnation from UN advisers, elected officials, civil society, and human rights groups, it has refused to end its complicity.

Boycott campaigns work

Grassroots movements have since intensified their demands for accountability — including boycotts of multi-national companies sponsoring Israeli sports bodies.

Reebok’s contract with the IFA came after Italian Sportswear Company Erreà withdrew from a similar contract following boycott calls, without ever having sent jerseys to the IFA.

Erreà was to replace PUMA, the world’s third-largest sportswear brand based in Bavaria, Germany.

PUMA did not renew its contract with the IFA following a 5-year global boycott campaign.

In July 2018, it was announced that Adidas, a German multinational athletic apparel and footwear corporation, was no longer sponsoring the IFA following an international campaign led by Palestinian sports teams and the delivery of over 16,000 signatures to Adidas headquarters.

US-based shoe brand Saucony just recently withdrew as sponsor of Israel’s so-called “Jerusalem marathon” over its route through Israeli-occupied East al-Quds and the fact that it featured as race “ambassadors” Israeli soldiers who have served in Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Reebok, however, reversed its brief attempt to distance itself. In late September, the company requested its logo be removed from IFA kits — but swiftly backtracked under Israeli lobby pressure, declaring it would “proudly” continue the sponsorship.

Last month, a coalition of 367 sports clubs in the occupied Palestinian territory sent a joint letter to Reebok demanding that the company end its sponsorship of the IFA, which is complicit in the ongoing occupation, apartheid and genocidal policies against Palestinians.

The letter warned that if Reebok refuses, the clubs will escalate pressure through a global boycott.

“By maintaining the sponsorship contract with the IFA, Reebok is putting its logo on horrendous crimes and risking not only serious reputational damage, as was the case with the IFA’s previous sponsor, PUMA, but also legal liability, including for its executives and managers, as international law scholars affirm,” read the letter.

“As long as Reebok continues to maintain this criminal and unethical sponsorship, we will urge people of conscience and fellow sports teams and athletes to boycott Reebok, and consider possible litigation against it and its managers,” it warned.

The pro-Palestine group “Runners for Justice in Palestine” also made a public delivery of the letter to Reebok’s headquarters in Boston.

The call is part of a broader boycott initiative—including a global Day of Action on November 22—aimed at compelling the sportswear sector to sever ties with institutions connected to Israel’s settlement policy.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is spearheading the campaign against Reebok, has called on the public to join the campaign to #BoycottReebok until it ends its complicity in Israel’s illegal land grabs and apartheid regime.

“Reebok claims its mission is to create products that boldly inspire human movement for all, yet it sponsors the apartheid that the IFA helps sustain, including denying Palestinians the right to freedom of movement,” BDS said.

BDS urged shoppers to avoid buying Reebok during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which fall in late November and are major high-spending shopping events marked by big discounts.

The campaign called on consumers to use these days to protest Reebok’s partnership with the IFA and show solidarity with Palestinians.

“Ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, make sure everyone knows Reebok is the Worst. Gift. Ever,” BDS noted.

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