Arsenal publishes list of 180+ countries showing Champions League final – leaves out Israel
Countries listed included Myanmar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen – and information was also provided for Palestine
Arsenal Football Club has failed to respond to requests for comment after publishing a list of more than 180 countries with information on which channel fans could watch the Champions League final on – but leaving out Israel.
The club, which won the Premier League last week and is set to play Paris St Germain in the European Cup final on Saturday in Budapest, published a news article on its website on Tuesday titled, “How to watch the Champions League final on TV”.
It provided an alphabetised list of countries, and the channels on which the Champions League final would be available. Despite the Champions League being available to watch in Israel via the Sports Channel/Sports 5 network, Israel was not on that list.
Countries which were listed included Myanmar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen – and information was also provided for Palestine.
Jewish News contacted Arsenal football club on Tuesday afternoon, asking for an explanation as to whether this was an error or a deliberate decision by the club. After a follow-up request for comment on Wednesday morning, the page on the website had been updated to include Israel – with the person who included it mistakenly placing it after Italy rather than before, as it would be on a correctly alphabetised list.
Jewish News now understands that the company responsible for compiling the information for the Arsenal website flagged overnight that a number of markets – including Israel – had been accidentally missed off, and that the list was subsequently updated this morning to include all those which were not originally included.
Earlier this month, Jewish News reported that Arsenal had signed a sleeve shirt sponsorship with Deel, a global payroll company.
One of Deel’s founders, Alex Bouaziz, is a French-Israeli, who lives in Israel and is one of the country’s most the most prominent figures in the area of global tech.
Following the news, the words “NO DEEL ZOG” were spray-painted inside a pedestrian railway tunnel close to the Emirates stadium. The term “ZOG” stands for “Zionist Occupied Government” – an antisemitic conspiracy theory commonly used by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. The phrase falsely claims that Jewish people secretly control governments and institutions.
The Met police confirmed last week that they were treating the graffiti “as racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage”, and said that no arrests had yet been made.
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