UEFA - and the host for next year's European u21s tournament is...

[Gromit]

...Israel.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/news/9715577/Premier-League-players-call-on-Uefa-to-remove-Israel-as-European-U-21-hosts.html

Even by UEFAs standards, that is just potty.

I cannot work out whether this is mixing sport and politics which I would disapprove of, or whether it is the opposite.

What do you think? And what do you think of the decision in general?

[ZedBloke]

Bonkers!

[sunny-dave]

Mad as a box of frogs ...

[mushroom25]

they might have had a better case if they'd limited their justification to "security grounds". as it is they appear to have taken sides in a political dispute where rights and wrongs on each side are most definitely not clear cut.

[modeller]

I'm sure UEFA chose them as fairly and honestly as they did for the World Cup.

[joeluke]

How long has Israel been in Europe?

[mushroom25]

//how long has Israel been in Europe?//

in football terms, since gaining full UEFA membership in 1994. they had previously been in the Asian Football Confederation but were kicked out in 1974 because few other confederation members would play against them.

[douglas9401]

"I cannot work out whether this is mixing sport and politics which I would disapprove of, or whether it is the opposite."

Is the opposite 'politics and sport' or not mixing sport and politics?

[joeluke]

I meant how long has Israel been in Europe geographically?

It's not in Europe so they shouldn't play in European football

'they had previously been in the Asian Football Confederation but were kicked out in 1974 because few other confederation members would play against them'

If other countries refuse to play them then that's tough

[ichkeria]

I'm not an apologist for Israel but:

Firstly, this tournament was awarded to Israel nearly 2 years ago, with the proviso that England would step in should the Gaza conflict escalate. This seems a likely scenario now, but we'll see. Kiryat Shimona's Europa League game was postponed recently so UEFA are obviously aware of the dangers.

On the issue of Israel's membership of UEFA, why should Israel suffer because no one will play it? Their membership of UEFA seems a lot more logical than that of Kazakhstan, who were admitted largely because they didn't like playing Uzbekistan (!)

Russia will stage the 2018 World Cup despite its particiation in the ethnic cleansing of large parts of fellow-UEFA member Georgia, which only goes to show that politics of that sort has no place in UEFA decision-making and despite everything I think that's a good thing, within reason.