Interview with Mauro Berruto: "Why Israeli athletes should be excluded from international competitions?"

Mauro Berruto, former coach of the men's national volleyball team and then director of the national archery team, speaks as a politician, but first and foremost as a sportsman, to name just a few of the most important roles he has held in his long sporting career.

As a parliamentarian and political leader, a member of the Democratic Party's national leadership, and with a distinguished athletic background, he spearheaded an initiative to exclude Israeli athletes from international competitions. This highly symbolic decision sparked controversy. Faced with a countless list of countries excluded from 1948 to the present by the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, and UEFA for reasons entirely symmetrical to those we are witnessing, none of the aforementioned sports bodies has even asked the question about Israel. There are some very clear "lead cases ": the former Yugoslavia and, even more so, South Africa, excluded from the Olympic Games from 1964 to 1988 due to apartheid. During the years when Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, the sports ban was one of the instruments of international pressure. When Mandela was finally freed, sport, at that moment, indeed, became a tool for conciliation: everyone knows the story of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, told in the film Invictus. Why do international sports bodies use one of sport's functions, namely sanctioning, only in certain cases? As for the controversies and accusations of anti-Semitism, they are infamy; I don't fall for them.

Political correctness would have us believe that sport is a world apart, free from " political invasions." We know this has never been the case. But when it comes to Israel, a Pavlovian reflex kicks in. Anyone who says that sport should stay out of politics (and vice versa) knows they're talking nonsense. It has never been this way, since ancient Greece. As early as 2,800 years ago, athletes competed at Olympia, representing their "polis" (the very root of the word "politics"), becoming examples for their communities, which rewarded them with what today we would call a "life annuity": housing, free meals, and, often, political or military roles. Anyone with a thorough understanding of the history of sport also knows that sport has never stopped wars. No war has ever stopped in a society that lived in a structural state of war, much less that of the Peloponnese. The oft-cited " Olympic Truce " was nothing more than a pass that allowed athletes and spectators to arrive safely at Olympia, which thus became a place of diplomacy. Sport didn't stop wars, but wars didn't stop sport. In the twentieth century alone, war stopped the Olympic Games three times, in 1916, 1940, and 1944. And when they resumed, at the London Games in 1948, Germany and Japan were banned from participating precisely because of the crimes committed during World War II. I would be the first to be happy if sport could once again exercise its diplomatic power, but then it would have to happen in every case without exception.

Indeed, the IOC sanctions Russia in the sporting arena, just as Europe does in the economic arena, but it doesn't lift a finger on Israel. Double standards? In the case of Russia, which violated the Olympic truce at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics with its aggression against Ukraine, the decision, absolutely correct, was immediate. Yet, for Israel, we are still here waiting, after nearly two years of extermination, the destruction of everything (and consequently also of sports and its infrastructure), the use of starvation as a method of warfare, after over 60,000 deaths, 20,000 of them children, and after the recent decisions regarding the West Bank, with the authorization of the new E1 settlement, which effectively certifies, if there were still any need, a state of apartheid with respect to the Palestinian people. The answer is: yes, of course, it is undoubtedly double standards. Among the over 62,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, a likely underestimation, is Suleiman Obeid, 41, one of the most famous footballers in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. He was considered the " Palestinian Pelé." Nearly 700 athletes have been killed since the beginning of this tragedy, and 90% of Gaza's sports infrastructure has been razed to the ground. Majeed Abu Maraheel, the first Palestinian flag bearer at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, also died due to the inability to treat his kidney disease. Suleiman Obeid, the " Palestinian Pelé," was killed while waiting for a sack of flour at a food distribution point. I don't believe in coincidence; all the cases cited are not " side effects." They are, rather, the demonstration of a clear political will. Whoever wants to wipe out a people attempts to specifically annihilate what holds that people's passions together. And sport plays that role. Thus, killing athletes (or musicians, poets, actors, journalists) means destroying the spirit of a people, the very thing that can keep them united even in tragedy. The Palestinian Olympic Committee has stated that once the conflict ends, it will be unthinkable for at least ten years to resume sporting activity in the Gaza Strip.

On October 14th, in Udine, there will be a World Cup qualifying match: Italy vs. Israel. What should or could we do? And first, on September 8th, on neutral ground in Debrecen, Hungary, there will be the first leg. Football has a much stronger media impact than many other sports, but in this case the problem is bigger; it concerns the sport as a whole, not a single discipline. As far as I'm concerned, the issue is the same whether we're talking about volleyball, basketball, or anything else. Each national team represents its country, and I say this with good reason, having coached national teams (first Finland, then Italy) for 11 years. We could open a discussion about individual athletes who didn't support Netanyahu's policies, just as is happening now with individual Russian athletes. Of course, banning some athletes who spoke out against the war would be a mistake (in tennis, I recall the Rublev case, one of the few who explicitly supported peace in Ukraine). The problem is that Israeli sport is one of the most "militarized" in the world, and I haven't heard any dissenting voices, at least personally. The fact remains that the IOC also has no qualms about team sports, such as football, and I emphasize that the exclusion decisions are not emotional, but are based on specific articles of the Olympic Charter and the FIFA and UEFA statutes, which are unequivocal. The decision not to play the Udine match is not the responsibility of the FIGC, but I wonder: what kind of signal does our country want to send? Should we look the other way?

Think of a symbolic action like the famous “ red shirts ” of Adriano Panatta and Paolo Bertolucci in the 1976 Davis Cup final in Pinochet's Chile? Why not? The history of sport is marked by powerful symbolic moments: I think of the image of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic podium, the black-gloved fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Sure, those two athletes paid a price (in fact, even Australian Peter Norman was penalized for simply wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights pin), but that image marked history. And it helped change it, to some extent. I appreciated the courageous stance taken by the AIAC, the Italian Association of Football Coaches, chaired by Renzo Ulivieri, and I wonder: is there any athlete, any sportsperson, any protagonist "on the field" who wants to make their voices heard? Minister Salvini responded to the AIAC by saying: "Coaches should think about being coaches." That's him, one might say. In fact, as a man who has dedicated 30 years of his life to sport, I'm well aware of that creeping attempt at delegitimization, that "just play," as if athletes were trained monkeys or court jesters who must put on a show while remaining quiet and good. So, I'm addressing them, the athletes: make your voices heard!

US President Donald Trump called Benjamin Netanyahu a “war hero” and a “good man.” I recall that the International Criminal Court (which Italy and Europe fully recognize) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. There's no need to comment further.

The Italian government continues to refuse to recognize the Palestinian state. If not now, when? Faced with what is now clear to the entire world—even, and finally, to Giorgia Meloni—Tajani and Crosetto have spoken out in firm, condemnatory terms. The point is that words are no longer worth anything, neither us nor, above all, Palestine and its tormented people. Words must be translated into action, and the first of these is the recognition of the State of Palestine . Then there are economic instruments, sanctions, embargoes. And among these actions is the ban from international sports competitions. Sport has a national-popular aspect that allows it to be a powerful tool of communication and a gigantic magnifying glass. These actions must then be made available to the internal opposition, which must be instilled and encouraged with courage, but if everything I have listed is not implemented by the international community, words will fade in the face of a tragic and simple fact: Palestine will no longer exist. And in the case of this horror, of this black hole in history, we would all be responsible: actors and spectators.

FROM

Umberto De Giovannangeli