As we reported earlier this week the Palestinian national football team (ranked 180th in the world) will take on Jordan (ranked 112th) in a friendly this coming Sunday.

Anywhere else in the world a friendly between two such lowly sides would not generate much media coverage but when Palestine are one of the teams and they are playing their first ever game on home soil, interest mounts and, being in the Middle East, controversy cannot be far behind.

For starters – there’s the issue of the name Palestine and its use in the football context.

Jibril Rajoub, one-time right-hand man to Yasser Arafat and now head of the Palestinian Football Federation,  told a news conference on Thursday his organisation was celebrating its 80th anniversary.

The Palestine FA was formed in 1928 and joined FIFA in 1929 but at the time the association was made up of Arab clubs, Jewish clubs (including the venerable Maccabe Tel Aviv) and clubs representing British policemen or soldiers serving in the region during the British Mandate rule that spanned the period between World War One and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. (more…)