NOVANEWS
Jersey design deemed a form of ‘discrimination’ after local Jewish community said they were anti-Israel.
Times of Israel
The Chilean football federation has banned a top-division team from donning jerseys featuring the number one shaped as Palestine, Israel Radio reported on Tuesday.
The federation also slapped a $1,300 fine on the Santiago-based club, Palestino, founded by the large Palestinian community in Chile, according to the report.
The team unveiled the controversial shirts in December, igniting a war of words with members of the Chilean Jewish community, who demanded that the club apologize and that the shirts be banned.
Jewish groups said the design, which replaced the number one with a map of Palestine before the UN partition plan vote in 1947, amounted to anti-Israel propaganda by implying that all the land was Palestinian.
Palestino team members wore the jerseys for three matches before the federation intervened, saying it opposes any form of discrimination.
The Palestino club responded on its Facebook page, writing that, from its perspective, “a free Palestine will always be historical Palestine, nothing less.”
