The Israeli Ultimate Frisbee Team was banned from the European Youth Ultimate Frisbee Championship, August 2024:
From an August 11 NY Post article:
The Israeli team — which included 33 players between the ages of 13 and 16, as well as nine adults — had been practicing and preparing for years ahead of the European Youth Ultimate Championship in Ghent, Belgium, according to Chen Bankirer, president of the Israeli Flying Disc Association.
Just as the team — which traveled thousands of miles to get to the tournament — was getting ready for Tuesday morning’s inaugural games, the tournament director told them that somebody had spray-painted “Boycott Israhell now!” near their field.
“Basically they said to us, ‘You’re not going to play.’ The claim of the police and the city is that the fields are too open, and they cannot protect the fields [or] ensure the safety of the tournament,” Bankirer said.
“We heard the news on Tuesday morning at 6 a.m.,” he said. “We were sad. We were waiting for [the kids] to wake up. And then we gathered all of them together, and we broke the news to 33 kids that they cannot play because they’re Israelis. And they were heartbroken.”
The Israeli Foreign Affairs and Culture and Sports Ministries tried to intervene, but the final decision banning the teams was made Tuesday night, according to the Jerusalem Post.
To add insult to injury, the city also banned the kids and coaches from even watching the games as spectators.
“I think they did not want people around to know that there were Israeli Jewish people there,” Bankirer said.
Itamar Kaplun, the team’s 16-year-old captain, said that calling the city’s decision shocking would be an understatement.
There hadn’t been any problems at the tournament until then, he said. And the Israeli team had gotten along with everyone else there.
“I was surprised that for 15-year-old kids who worked for three years … They just took it away from us,” he said. “And to find out in such a difficult way — because there was no way to say it easily — it was heartbreaking.”
“It’s kind of a reality that, as a Jew, you have to get used to it at some point.”
Bankirer said he and the coaches appealed to both the tournament organizers and local officials, but didn’t get anywhere.
The European Ultimate Federation blamed the city for the decision and said it was out of its hands, he added. And the city wouldn’t budge off its decree.
“This is something that should be in the heart — and the basis — of every single sport,” Bankirer said. “An international event has to be able to include everyone. Or not exist.”
