Whose death do we mourn? Football, Palestine, and decency

As global football mourns the tragic death of Diogo Jota, the silence over the killing of yet another Palestinian footballer in Gaza exposed a painful truth — some lives are grieved more than others.

Diogo Jota (left) and Muhannad Al-Laili.

Diogo Jota, a prominent Portuguese footballer, along with his younger brother, died in a car accident when his Lamborghini burst a tyre and caught fire while overtaking in Zamora, Spain, on Thursday. The 28-year-old played for the English club Liverpool and was an important member of the team that finished last season as the champions of England. The news of his untimely, tragic demise sent shockwaves through the football world. Condolences from his national and club teammates poured in throughout the day. Liverpool fans turned the club’s ground, Anfield, into a temporary shrine to the footballer, leaving flowers, jerseys, scarves, and condolence messages in his memory.

English papers were full of tributes to Jota — from stitching together highlight reels to writing obituaries lamenting the tragedy that befell his surviving wife and three young children, and celebrating the premature end to a very successful career — they left no angle unexplored in commemorating his life and legacy.

Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, led the tributes from the British political leadership. “We just received the heartbreaking news a moment ago before we came into the chamber that he tragically lost his life at just 28 years of age,” Nandy said in the House of Commons. “I think the whole house is heartbroken by this news and I wanted to send our sympathies to his friends and family on behalf of the whole house.”

Jota, an unassuming personality loved by one and all, certainly deserved the celebration of life tragically cut short.

Jota’s life, however, was not the only one brought to a premature end on Thursday. On the same day, Israel killed Muhannad al-Laili in an airstrike on Al-Maghazi refugee camp. Al-Laili played for Al-Maghazi Services Club in Gaza’s semi-professional league, a sport barely surviving under siege.

There wasn’t a peep in the English — or any other Western — press about the death of yet another Palestinian footballer in Gaza. Al-Laili is not the first; he is just the latest of an astonishing number — over 400 footballers, young and old — killed by Israel since it began its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023.

When the news of Jota’s demise was first posted on Reddit’s football forum, r/soccer, one of the largest of its kind with more than 8.5 million members, it generated more than 2,500 comments within hours. Fans from across the globe expressed their shock and posted comments about their favourite Jota moments and goals.

The first page of the community soon turned into an exclusive Jota tribute page, with members posting condolence messages from other footballers and political leaders.

However, when the news of Al-Lili’s death was posted on the same forum, the thread was instantly locked to comments. No one could post any condolence messages, tributes, or prayers for the Palestinian footballer, who probably died on an empty stomach after surviving the ongoing months-long full-spectrum blockade of the Gaza Strip that began on March 2.

The forum’s moderators left a sole boilerplate comment, explaining the reason for locking the comment thread. The moderators labelled the murder of a football player in broad daylight a “complex issue” that “evokes high emotions” and “inevitably leads to discussions far removed from the subject of football.”

The prevailing logic on the Reddit forum appears to be one of maintaining a studied silence on the reason why Al-Laili and more than 400 of his colleagues have been killed: don’t talk about the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians that doesn’t differentiate a combatant from a non-combatant, a fighter from a toddler, and a military training compound from a football pitch.

Of course, the moderators at Reddit do not apply the same standards to threads that concern the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war. There, members have full freedom to pour bile on the Russians, curse them, and wish them the worst. In those threads “discussions far removed from the subject of football” cease to be a problem.

This culture of selective silence extends beyond forums and spills into the institutions that run global football.

“The Israeli army has killed 785 Palestinian athletes and sports officials in Gaza and the West Bank since October 2023, the Palestinian Football Association said on Sunday [June 29],” reported Anadolu. “The deaths include players and administrative staff from various sports, with the vast majority killed in Gaza and 23 in the occupied West Bank, Susan Shalabi, deputy head of the association, told Anadolu.” Shalabi added, “437 of those killed were football players, including 15 from the West Bank.”

Even after such a devastating and deliberate attack on Gaza’s sports infrastructure and players, Israel has faced no repercussions. Its athletes — many of whom were soldiers in the genocidal army — merely swapped their boots for running shoes, fresh from participating in the Gaza genocide, and went on to compete in the Paris Olympics last year. Israel’s national football team as well as clubs have continued to play their scheduled fixtures across Europe without hindrance. Palestinian calls for FIFA, the football governing body, to show Israel the red card and prohibit it from participating until it starts abiding by international laws have had no effect thus far. The Israeli impunity extends from international courts to football stadia. No one holds the genocidal state to account.

The football governing bodies’ lack of action against Israel, it must be noted, is not appreciated by the average fan. Football fans across the world have been vocal about their opposition to the genocidal state’s participation in the common man’s game. Even in matches with no Israeli participation, fans have brought out chants, banners, and tifos in support of the Palestinian cause at every opportunity. When fans of Paris Saint-Germain marched through the streets of Munich in support of their team ahead of the Champions League final against Inter Milan in May, they chanted, “Nous sommes tous les enfants de Gaza” (We are all the children of Gaza).

A tifo by the fans of Paris Saint-Germain during their game against Atletico Madrid November last year.

Some clubs have even institutionally protested in their own conspicuous ways. When the genocidaires from the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv took on Bodo/Glimt in a Europa League game earlier this year, the Norwegian side made the notable decision to donate the proceeds of the game to the Red Cross in Gaza.

“Glimt cannot, and will not, be unaffected by the suffering and violations of international law that are taking place in other parts of the world,” the club announced in a statement. “We will donate all the ordinary ticket revenues from the home game against Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Red Cross and earmark aid work in the Gaza Strip. This amounts to NOK 735,000 ($65,000) — and is donated by all of us.”

The gesture was particularly striking, as it was Maccabi Tel Aviv fans who went on a rampage in Amsterdam last November, targeting Muslim and Arab taxi drivers and other residents in the city in completely unprovoked assaults. (Dutch prosecutors recently dropped a couple of criminal cases against the Maccabi hooligans because, astonishingly, key surveillance footage was lost.)

The blatant double standard on display further highlights the disdain in which the powers that be — whether in powerful sporting bodies like FIFA or establishment narrative peddler social media like Reddit — hold the long-suffering Palestinians. The weight of a Palestinian life is much lighter than others in their gross calculation. But the ordinary fans, for the most part, hold no such views as has been clear from their unflinching support for the Palestinian cause over the years and especially after October 2023.

As the Western leadership and Western institutions become increasingly divorced from the sentiment on the ground, the growing solidarity among ordinary people — from millions marching in the streets to packed stadiums demanding an end to the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza — serves as a powerful rebuke to the hypocrisy of those in power. The dam will soon burst.

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