FIFA’s disciplinary committee has sanctioned the head of the Palestinian Football Association, after determining that statements from Jibril Rajoub incited hatred and violence, in violation of Article 53 of the international football organization’s disciplinary code.

FIFA said Rajoub had been handed a 12-month match suspension and a $20,000 fine, “following media statements he gave calling on football fans to target the Argentinian Football Association and burn jerseys and pictures of Lionel Messi.”

Argentina was scheduled to play a friendly match against Israel in Jerusalem on June 9 prior to the World Cup. The match was later cancelled, after Messi was threatened and Argentina called off the event to protect their players. The Israeli embassy in Argentina said at the time that the situation was not foreign “to the daily life of Israel’s civilian population whose sporting stars, to put it simply, have been on numerous occasions the targets of violence and attacks.”

FIFA said Rajoub’s suspension “entails a ban on taking part in any future match or competition taking place during the given period.” The organization clarified that Rajoub “will not be able to attend football matches or competitions in any official capacity, which includes, among others, participating in media activities at stadiums or in their vicinity on matchdays.”

The 12-month match suspension becomes effective immediately.

Rajoub is the head of the Central Committee of Fatah, the Palestinian political party which controls the Palestinian National Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Rajoub is also head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee.

In 2012, he hailed the then-chief of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, for declining a minute of silence to commemorate the Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich 1972 Olympics. Rajoub charged the commemoration would have been “racism.”

[Photo: The Jerusalem Post / YouTube ]