ISTANBUL

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has acknowledged that the participation of Israeli clubs and national teams in European tournaments amid the conflict in Gaza is “a legitimate question,” while defending the organization’s current stance to allow them to compete.

In an interview with Slovenian media on Thursday, Ceferin said he is generally opposed to barring athletes from competitions, drawing a comparison with the ongoing ban on Russian teams.

“This is a legitimate question. In principle, I am not an advocate of not allowing athletes to compete in competitions,” he said.

“We see that athletes have not competed for three and a half years and the war is even worse than it was. I know that many are opponents of the regime, but they still cannot play.”

He noted that sport and politics are “very intertwined” in the case of Israel but insisted that UEFA’s policy remains unchanged.

“For now, that’s our decision. It’s very difficult for me to comment on what could happen. But in principle, I think that all athletes should have the opportunity to compete and that other things should be handled differently,” he said.

Addressing the incident in which Slovenian volleyball players refused to shake hands with their Israeli counterparts after a European Championship qualifier, Ceferin said: “It is difficult for me to comment on their decision, but on a principled level I can say that I do not like it when athletes do not shake hands with each other.”