Israel’s Moshe Zuares elected to top UEFA committee

Israel Football Association Chairman Moshe “Shino” Zuares was elected to the UEFA Executive Committee, the top governing body of European soccer, the organization announced on Thursday.

Zuares was voted in for a two-year term alongside Royal Spanish Football Federation President Abal Rafael Louzán, UEFA stated.

Zuares received 31 votes from the 55 national federations as one of five candidates for two vacant seats through 2027 on the ruling board. Louzán retained his seat with 32 votes.

Ukrainian Football Association President Andriy Shevchenko failed in his bid to be elected to the seat vacated by Russia’s Alexander Dyukov on Wednesday, garnering just 15 votes from fellow members, the Associated Press reported.

Zuares, who became the president of the Jewish state’s national soccer association in 2019 and was re-elected in 2022, campaigned across Europe, visiting almost every member association.

Last month, the Palestinian Authority’s Football Association called on UEFA chief Aleksander Čeferin to bar Zuares from running for a seat.

In the letter to Čeferin, Ramallah’s soccer association noted that Zuares visited an Israeli Air Force base during the current war against Hamas terrorists, where he reportedly told military personnel, “Together, we will win.”

The P.A. group expressed “profound disappointment” that Zuares was able to pass eligibility checks carried out by UEFA’s electoral committee.

In October, two prominent Israeli research institutes lodged a complaint with the world soccer body FIFA against Palestinian Football Association head Jabril Rajoub for using sports to promote terrorism and violence in violation of FIFA regulations.

In 2023, Rajoub said that the Hamas -led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, in which Gazan terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others, was “heroic” and came “in the context of the defensive war our people are waging.”