The curious case of two empty stadiums in Hungary

Early next month, the Scotland men’s side will kick off their World Cup qualifying campaign. Having been drawn in Group C, the Scots will face a tough fight to reach the tournament in 2026, lining up against Greece, Denmark and Belarus, with the Danes playing hosts for the opening match in Copenhagen on 5th September. As always, the Tartan Army will travel in great numbers, the away allocation already snapped up by members of the Scotland Supporters Club some weeks ago.

But when Steve Clarke’s lads take on Belarus away from home in the second fixture of the campaign just three days later, there will be no Scotland fans, or indeed any supporters, in attendance. The match itself will not even be in Belarus. Instead, the likes of John McGinn, Andy Robertson, and Ballon d’Or nominee Scott McTominay will be strutting their stuff in the empty ZTE Arena in the Hungarian city of Zalaegerszeg. The reasons for this are perhaps not a huge surprise.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, teams and competitors from Russia, across a range of sports, have found themselves expelled from competition. This has been the case within football too, where there continues to be a ban imposed by UEFA and FIFA on Russian national and club sides in international and European competitions. Given Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s unwavering support for Putin’s invasion, sanctions have also been imposed on those who seek to represent Belarus in a sporting context.

Throughout the Euro 2024 qualifiers, for example, the Belarus national side were forced to play home matches not only outwith the country but behind closed doors, while any Belarusian club sides participating in European competitions have had to do likewise. And, in line with Russia’s ongoing aggression with Belarusian support, these sanctions have not yet been lifted.

Such restrictions, however, have generated criticism. Many initially demanded that UEFA, and FIFA, should go further and, as with Russia, fully ban Belarusian national and club sides from their competitions, particularly given the country’s role in permitting Russian forces to use Belarusian territory to launch attacks on Ukraine. This included more than 100 MEPs writing to UEFA to urge the expulsion of the Belarus national side from the Euro 2024 qualifiers, as well as an ardent campaign by the Scottish Greens for a similar outcome. However, the governing bodies have remained unmoved and the original sanctions have remained in force.

Regardless of whether you believe that Belarusian teams and athletes should be treated in the exact same way as their Russian counterparts or not, there is a clear key point here: those who govern the beautiful game took swift action to impose sanctions on teams from a country that has vociferously supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a clear indication that there exists both the ability and desire to ensure that illegal actions taken by the governments of nation states can be met with a response in the world of sport.

“There exists both the ability and desire to ensure that illegal actions taken by the governments of nation states can be met with a response in the world of sport.”

It is within this context, that the Scots will, on 8th September, take to the field in Zalaegerszeg, in the far west of Hungary, a relatively short distance from Slovenia. For any football fan, the spectacle of their side playing in an empty stadium in a neutral country is a rare, odd occurrence, unnatural even. It is, therefore, perhaps even more bizarre that a very similar event will be taking place at the exact same time, on the exact same night, in the exact same country.

In the eastern city of Debrecen, close to the border with Romania and just a couple of hours drive from Ukraine, the Nagyerdei Stadion will play host to thousands of empty seats as two international sides slug it out in another World Cup qualifying match, this time in Group I, as Israel ‘host’ Italy.

Now, if you are not familiar with why the Israeli men’s national side are playing such a fixture in an empty Hungarian stadium on 8th September, it may be easy, having considered the sanctions imposed on Belarus, to reach a quick and entirely natural assumption.

But unfortunately, if there is one thing that football fans across the world tend to understand about governing bodies like UEFA and FIFA, it is that they are rarely the moral arbiters of the greatest sport on earth. When not devoting their time to needlessly tinkering with handball or offside rules, they are often denying accusations of corruption or unashamedly awarding major international tournaments to countries engaged in the full-scale sportswashing of human rights violations.

And so it is debatable whether it should surprise anyone, football fan or not, that it is not because of Israel’s decimation of Gaza, the deliberate starvation of the Palestinian population, the extensively documented array of war crimes, the gunning down of civilians seeking aid, the issuing by the ICC of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity, or the undertaking of the most live-streamed genocide in human history that Israeli captain Eli Dasa will lead his teammates out of the tunnel in the empty Nagyerdei Stadion at the same time as the Scottish and Belarusian players take to the field at the other end of the country.

Instead, following the attack by Hamas on 7th October 2023, UEFA has, in line with its approach to Ukrainian football, deemed Israel unsafe for European and international matches, with the Hungarian Football Federation stating that “it was not a question… to come to the aid of UEFA and the Israel federation”.

The far-right government led by Viktor Orbán has been forceful in its cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests, labelled as “rallies supporting terrorist organisations” by Orbán himself, with the Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto describing anti-genocide demonstrations in other EU countries as “alarming”, suggesting that they would be “unthinkable” in Hungary. In essence, Hungary seems like the ideal ‘neutral’ location for the Israel national side to play their home matches in such circumstances, following UEFA’s decision that it is unsafe to do so in Haifa, Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

It is a similar story when it comes to Israeli club sides playing in Europe. Unlike Russian clubs such as Lokomotiv Moscow and Krasnador, who have been kicked out of the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League for several years, or the likes of Neman Grodno and Dinamo Minsk of Belarus who have had to play their home ties in the same competitions outwith their homeland with no fans in the ground, Israeli clubs are entirely free to participate in front of crowds – albeit with home matches held outside Israel, again in line with the approach taken to Ukrainian clubs.

Maccabi Tel Aviv, for example, have played their recent Champions League qualifying home matches in Serbia, with supporters in attendance, and have faced no restrictions in relation to away ties. This is precisely why Europe has witnessed scenes such as those in Amsterdam in November, when Maccabi fans set off flares, chanted “death to Arabs”, tore down Palestinian flags, and vandalised taxis ahead of a match with Ajax. They were subsequently beaten 5-0 by the Dutch side.

When you are a football fan, there will often be a claim from somewhere or someone that politics does not belong in the game, or sport more generally. It may be argued that no such statement could possibly be more inaccurate.

However, whether or not you believe politics and football are intrinsically interwoven or not, it is simply a fact that the governing bodies rightfully moved at pace to expel Russian and sanction Belarusian national and club teams from competition. Yet – despite almost two years of ongoing atrocities in Gaza, confirmed as genocide not only by the world’s leading scholars in that area and two Israeli human rights organisations, but by many, many more – those same men in suits, sitting in the UEFA and FIFA HQs in Switzerland, have continued to turn a blind eye to the crime of the century unfolding before our very eyes.

That was, of course, until the pre-match ceremony ahead of the UEFA Super Cup Final in Udine, Italy between Tottenham and PSG in August. As was widely covered in the media and online following the game, a banner which read ‘Stop Killing Children – Stop Killing Civilians’ was unveiled as both teams lined up on the pitch. Two child refugees from Gaza who had been relocated to Milan for medical treatment – 12-year-old Tala and nine-year-old Mohamed – were also involved in the medal ceremony following the match. Naturally, such actions were not without their critics.

One of the criticisms from some quarters was that the calling for an end to the slaughter of children and civilians was antisemitic. Such a claim should be treated with the contempt it deserves. But criticism of UEFA’s pre- and post-match antics is still entirely justified, albeit for different reasons.

Following the murder of the ‘Pelé of Palestinian football’, Saleiman al-Obeid, by the IDF while seeking to access aid, suffering a similar fate to the ever-growing approximate 1,500 civilians who have been killed in the same circumstances according to the UN, his death was not highlighted to any great extent by the world’s media. It was, in fact, Liverpool and Egypt striker Mohamed Salah who managed to propel the incident into the discourse by responding to a UEFA social media post.

“Farewell to Suleiman al-Obeid, the ‘Palestinian Pele’,” said the UEFA account in a relatively mealy-mouthed post on X. “A talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times.”

“Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?” asked Salah.

The 33-year-old forward, one of the biggest names in world football, had suddenly shone a light on the death of Suleiman al-Obeid at the hands of the IDF and, with it, directly challenged the cowardly approach to his passing taken by European football’s governing body, who had failed to acknowledge the circumstances that had led to his passing.

And, for an organisation that seems to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to defend itself against reputational damage, when someone with the influence and reach of Mo Salah calls you out publicly, you really have to do something – not necessarily because it is the right thing to do but, perhaps more likely, because your PR advisor has told you to.

With that in mind, we should look again at the performative actions of UEFA ahead of the Super Cup Final. Having set a precedent in March 2022 by banning Russian sides from international and European competitions following the invasion of Ukraine and forcing Belarusian footballers to play in empty Hungarian stadiums due to their leaders support for that invasion, those that govern our game have demonstrated that they can and will act.

And still, in just a couple of weeks’ time, two football matches will take place in eerily quiet stadiums, under 500km apart, on either side of Hungary. In Debrecen, Israel’s men’s national side will take on the Italians in a World Cup qualifier, playing the tie in a state that vehemently opposes those who seek to speak out against the genocide, because their Israeli homeland is deemed unsafe by UEFA, in much the same way Ukraine is. In Zalaegerszeg, Belarusian footballers will take to the field, exiled from their usual surroundings in Minsk, because of quick, decisive action taken by UEFA in direct response to Lukashenko’s support for the Russian attack that has resulted in Ukraine being unsafe to host football matches.

So before anyone warmly welcomes UEFA’s decision to display performative banners and parade traumatised children in front of the television cameras, consider that the governing body of European football, and indeed FIFA, have done nothing of any tangible note whatsoever when it has come to the Israeli state’s actions – both during the inhuman scenes witnessed since October 2023 and over the course of decades of occupation and apartheid previously.

These are not organisations who care about innocent children or civilians. These are not organisations who care that a Palestinian international footballer was slaughtered by the IDF. These are not organisations who care about being on the right side of history.

These are organisations for whom the day job revolves around putting money and sponsors ahead of supporters, fining fans for displaying Palestinian flags and banners of support for the people of Gaza in European competition, and aiding the sportswashing of human rights abuses. These are organisations who will only take action to punish footballing nations for the callous actions of their governments when it suits them.

“These are not organisations who care that a Palestinian international footballer was slaughtered by the IDF. These are not organisations who care about being on the right side of history.”

And when it comes to UEFA in particular, the message is loud and clear.

Declare war and invade a neighbouring European country, occupying its territory, and you will see your teams banned from competition. Enable such an invasion by allowing use of your territory for strategic attacks and you will suffer sanctions.

But if you follow up decades of occupation and oppression by meting out a genocide upon a predominantly Arab neighbour, including the mass displacement of an entire population and the well documented and continuous slaughter of civilians that has led to the ever-increasing wounding of 156,000 people and deaths of 62,000 people, with a rate of around one child killed every hour since October 2023…

UEFA will be silent, only stirring when there is a slight PR challenge to deal with, ensuring that a couple of hollow gestures play out in a twisted tick box exercise, while the sporting stars representing the perpetrating state carry on playing the game at all levels, only inconvenienced if it is deemed necessary for their own safety.

Cowardly tweets about murdered sportspeople queuing for food, meaningless banners suddenly materialising not in response to the systematic ethnic cleansing of a population but to a well-publicised challenge by a world-renowned footballer on social media, and the trotting out of innocent children, wounded by Israeli forces, to take part in a closing ceremony in a tokenistic gesture – none of this can possibly qualify as anything close to serious action when these same governing bodies have already set an ongoing precedent. The only conclusion that can be reached is that the real silence from UEFA – and FIFA – continues to be disgracefully and shamefully deafening.

If silence is complicity, then football’s governing bodies are undoubtedly complicit.