The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) calls for Israel's suspension from sporting competitions.

"Can a football match, preceded by the national anthems, be considered just a football match?"

Thus begins the letter that the Association of Italian Football Coaches, led by Renzo Ulivieri, sent to the president of the FIGC, Gabriele Gravina.

The AIAC calls for a mobilization on behalf of the Palestinian people in Gaza and for UEFA and FIFA to forward their request for Israel's temporary suspension.

"Can what is happening in the Gaza Strip, with heavy repercussions in the West Bank and Lebanon, simply be counted as one of the 56 active conflicts in the world, which should receive the same attention and the same response?

Can the terrorist massacre carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, with over a thousand innocent Israeli victims and the taking of 250 hostages, justify Israel's ferocious genocidal retaliation, which has caused tens of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths, to the point of announcing their deportation?

"These are all questions that the Italian Football Coaches Association has asked itself and is now asking the other federal bodies and the FIGC as a whole, especially in view of the upcoming matches between the Italian national team and the Israeli team on September 8th and October 15th."

The enormity of the events unfolding in those tormented territories demands everyone's awareness and, in our opinion, concrete action commensurate with the tragedy unfolding. There is no longer a time for moral suasion toward the Netanyahu government, which has clearly turned a deaf ear to the appeals being made to it from many quarters, including widespread street demonstrations and important voices of its own people. This confirms that the objective criticisms and protests do not wink at Hamas terrorists (a significant part of the problem), and above all, they do not conceal unresolved anti-Semitic impulses.

We say it forcefully: in the face of the Holocaust, we are all Jews forever, and no one wants to remove the bookmark of memory. But History did not stop at that horror and questions us today, with no discounts for any nation. Let's not forget that the biblical "an eye for an eye" remains a formula entrusted by God to Moses so that the reaction to an evil suffered is not disproportionate. This applies to every individual, and even more so to a democratic state.

"Paragraph 5 of Article 2 of the Federal Statute," the coaches also note, "states: the FIGC promotes the exclusion from football of all forms of social discrimination, racism, xenophobia, and violence.

The AIAC Board of Directors unanimously believes that, given the daily massacres, which have claimed hundreds of lives among managers, coaches, and athletes, including Palestinian football star Suleiman al-Obeid, it is legitimate, necessary, and even a duty, to place at the center of the federal debate the request, to be submitted to UEFA and FIFA, for Israel's temporary exclusion from sporting competitions. Because the pain of the past cannot cloud anyone's conscience or humanity.