BDS achieved a major victory: PUMA was forced to drop its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding part of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, welcomes the news that PUMA will not renew its contract with the Israel Football Association (IFA).
PUMA has been the target of a global BDS campaign since 2018 for its support of Israeli apartheid that oppresses millions of Palestinians. The IFA runs and supports the maintenance of teams in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land.
Leaked internal emails revealed that PUMA was under tremendous pressure to withdraw the contract.
As Israel carries out its unfolding genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in occupied and besieged Gaza, having so far killed more than 18,000 people, including dozens of footballers, the pressure of the boycott was mounting.
The years of relentless, global BDS pressure on PUMA and the damage to its image should be a lesson to all companies that support Israeli apartheid that complicity has consequences. It is also a lesson for the deeply complicit, Western-dominated FIFA, which continues to shield Israel from liability even though settlement groups violate its statutes.
Thanks to the hundreds of grassroots solidarity groups, athletes, and teams around the world who supported the call of 215 Palestinian teams to defy PUMA. This boycott victory is bittersweet as Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues. But it gives us hope and determination to hold all supporters of genocide and supporters of apartheid accountable until all Palestinians can live in freedom, justice, and equality.
Source: BDS with the help of BDS Greece
