July 16th, 2023: This Week in Palestinian Football

The Yasser Arafat Cup marks the start of the 2023/24 season in the Palestinian leagues some say the league needs more foreigners- I say it needs more Palestinians.

In this week’s newsletter we’ll look at what can be done to improve the quality of the West Bank Premier League and to a lesser extent its counterpart in Gaza.

There has been consistent league play in the West Bank and Gaza since 2008. The league that came be known as the WBPL kicked off its first season 13 years ago. Since then, seven teams have lifted the title- a testimony to the parity in the league.

The sheer existence of the league helped boost the national team. One of the biggest hurdles Palestine had to overcome in the early 2000s was the fact that the league was interrupted by the second Intifiada. This left many national team coaches scrambling to find players who could survive the challenges of international football.

A group of Palestinian buisnessmen from Kuwait pumped $7 million to the PFA and some very impressive results were achieved- Palestine’s largest ever win in a World Cup qualifier (8-0 vs Chinese Taipei) is one notable example. This largely goes unnoticed as the current adminsitration likes to pretend that Palestinian football started when they took over.

During that time, Palestine had a couple of locally based players that they could count on- Ramzi Saleh in goal, Saeb Jendeya in defence, and Ziyad Al-Kord up top. The rest of the team was wholly dependent on players plying their trades abroad and even the aformentioned players left Palestine to further their careers. For the national team to succeed there needed to be a steady influx of players from the diaspora. The performance of the team would vary considerably based on whether or not certain players could show up. There was no depth to speak of and Palestine at youth and U23 level was amongst the weakest teams in Asia.

When Jibril Rajoub assumed the presidency of the Palestine Football Association there was a weird period of time when Palestine forgot about its foreign based stars. The results showed. Palestine went winless in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. In those 17 games Palestine lost 11 scoring a meager six goals and conceding a whopping 32 in the process.

Imad Zatara, Roberto Kettlun, Omar Jarun were left in the lurch for years. Omar Jarun waited four years for second cap and was even pursued by Jordan’s national team for a nationality switch. Imad Zatara was left out for five years. Roberto Kettlun for six!

Palestine crashed out of World Cup qualification when the vaunted “Mr. Security” Jibril Rajoub couldn’t get the majority of the team exit visas to play in Singapore. That same issue meant the team missed out on the 2008 Challenge Cup.

Things started to improve in 2011- no doubt because there was a new league to provide an element of depth to the national team. A huge boost to the league was the fact that they recruited Palestinians from the Israeli league. A phenomenon which was covered by Haartez in 2011.

Back then, it seemed inevitable that the league would continue to grow- achieve results in Asian competition and attract even more talent from the other side of the Green Line.

It has not quite happened that way and as such I have decided to give you my plan to improve Palestinian Football in Six Steps:

Form a Single Entity