FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nov. 21, 2025

Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected] 

CODEPINK and #GameOverIsrael Urge the Čeferin Family to Support Israel’s Suspension from European Football

#GameOverIsrael: Public Appeal to Barbara Čeferin

LONDON - Today, over 200 women delivered a public appeal to Barbara Čeferin requesting that she use her influence to support the suspension of Israel from UEFA. Barbara Čeferin is the partner of Aleksander Čeferin, President of UEFA. The letter was organised by CODEPINK, a feminist grassroots organization working to end U.S. warfare and imperialism, and the Game Over Israel campaign.

“Power doesn’t just move through public channels. It moves, invisibly, through our private relationships, our family dynamics, our wider social circles. In this moment, what we do with that power (in response to Israel’s genocide) either helps or harms the cause of justice. Barbara Čeferin has influence with those who have the power to suspend Israel from European football, an event that would begin Israel’s global cultural isolation in earnest. We’re asking that she use it. We hope that she does.” – Mary Rinaldi, co-director #GameOverIsrael

“The decision to suspend the vote due to Trump’s sham proposal for peace should never have happened. The landscape never changed, nor will it change while Israel is still committing genocide and occupation. We must put insurmountable pressure on bodies like UEFA to not give into fake “peace plans” that negate the fact that Israel is a settler colonial apartheid state.” - Jenin, CODEPINK Palestine campaign organizer.

The letter is signed by Americans, Europeans, and British people, including British actress Juliet Stevenson CBE, lead vocalist for the British band Garbage Shirley Manson, English singer, songwriter, actress, and television personality Paloma Faith, and Irish actress Denise Gough, known for her role in the Disney+ series Andora. 

In addition to signing the letter, many women wrote personal messages to Barbara Čeferin. A small selection are below:

My heart is broken over the almost 20,000 children killed in Gaza. There has to be accountability for Israel's actions in Gaza. UEFA must take a clear stand and suspend Israel, just like it suspended Russia over its aggression against Ukraine. – Agnes, California, USA

Jen Brister, British stand-up comedian, writer, and actor, wrote: I speak with Palestinians in Gaza every day. Their lives, their futures, and much of their family has been erased. Settlers are waiting to take their land. They are begging to be heard. Don't turn away from a people who are systematically being murdered and ethnically cleansed from their own land. Do not give Israel impunity. Boycott, divest, sanction. Their crimes must not be laundered through football or any international sports event.

I believe in you and your voice matters. – Síle Seoige, Irish TV presenter, Ireland

My school-age daughter is a football player in the USA. Her uncles are all football players — and once upon a time, her great grandfather was a footballer in 1920s Palestine. Our family knows that sport and community are tied together, and by extension family and values. We want football to be a sport we can be proud of from a values perspective. Please help make football a humanist experience by supporting Game Over Israel. Thank you. – Yasmin, California, USA

… Allowing Israel full permission to participate in sports normalizes and even supports Israel's crimes against humanity. PLEASE... do not reward Israel's inhumanity. Block all Israeli participation in all activities. – Linda, California, USA

The letter remains open for signatories and can be found here.

#GameOverIsrael: This campaign launched on September 16 with a Billboard in Times Square (FT, Reuters), calling on the football federations to boycott Israel. The campaign is powered by a coalition of ordinary people - organizers, activists, humanitarians, and football fans – fighting for justice, accountability, and freedom for Palestine.

The #GameOverIsrael campaign is advised by Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, British-Palestinian Plastic Surgeon and founder of the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund; Abed Ayoub, director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Richard Falk, former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied and President of the Gaza Tribunal; and Craig Mokhiber, former UN human rights official, and supported by a growing list of organizations, including ADC, CODEPINK, The Gaza Tribunal, Health Workers 4 Palestine, the Hind Rajab Foundation, and Tech for Palestine. 

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