The Palestine Football Association chief urged fans on Sunday to burn pictures of Argentina striker Lionel Messi and replicas of his shirt if he plays against Israel in Jerusalem next weekend.
Argentina will play at Jerusalem’s Teddy Kollek Stadium on Saturday night in a World Cup warm-up match that has attracted huge interest among the Israeli fans, mainly because of Messi’s planned participation.
But the Palestinians are not happy that the match will be held in Jerusalem and Palestinian FA chief Jibril Rajoub wrote to Claudio Tapia, the head of the Argentinian FA, last week accusing Israel of using the match as a “political tool”.
“The Israeli government has turned a regular sports match into a political tool. As was widely covered in Argentinian media, the match now is being played in order to celebrate the ‘70thanniversary of the State of Israel’,” part of Rajoub’s letter said.
“He’s a big symbol so we are going to target him personally and we call on all to burn his picture and his shirt and to abandon him. We still hope that Messi will not come,” he told reporters after leaving the Argentinian representative office in the West Bank town of Ramallah.