Why Israel's Football Team Are Members of UEFA 

Thank you for all the birthday messages HITC Sevens gang, much appreciated. 👍🏽

Short Answer: Arab-Israeli war

Imagine Israel having an away day in Tehran. "Shitshow" would be a massive understatement. Happy birthday, Alfie!

North Korea boycotting anyone else is priceless.

Can you do one on Suriname being in CONCACAF instead of CONMEBOL?

Happy Birthday Alfie. You are one of the hardest working footballing RU-vidr and the videos prove that.

I always wondered why Israel, based around AFC nations where in Europe. But this now explains it. Very great video. Hope to see more like it

Tbh as an Israeli it is nice to see that you stayed very neutral while explaining, and that there are no significant racist comments in this area

So happy to see that the comment section is pretty civil, happy birthday Alfie!

4:12 North Korea boycotting games against a controversial nation, hah that's cute

Oh, what a nice surprise, it's the first time that a football channel as known and good as HITC made an actual video about us, thanks for not mentioning who horrible our national teams and league systems are. Our story as footballing nation is special and interesting and I'm that it's being told in here, But there's something you failed to mention near the end, Maccabi Tel Aviv also qualified for the Champions League twice, not only Maccabi Haifa, in 2004-05, drawing Ajax, Juventus & Bayern Munich and in 2015-16, drawing Chelsea, Porto & Dynamo Kyiv. Also, happy birthday Alfie!

I feel like Kazakhstan being a UEFA member makes less sense tbh..

Happy Birthday Alfie!

Happy birthday alfie! Big legend, we appreciate you a lot :)

happy birthday mate, smashed it with this one

Happy birthday Alfie, loving those political style videos

Video Idea: Most underpeforming teams this season

Really sucks for Israel, because if they played against middle eastern teams, they would make it to the World Cup almost every competition cycle, but instead, they have to play against Poland and the Czech Republic instead of Jordan and Syria.

Turkey , Russia , Israel and Kazakhstan should play in AFC. If they come here challenge in AFC will intensifies . Anyway happy birthday bro . wish you a good luck and good health ahead .

The Yom Kippur War, i.e. a direct clash between Egypt and Syria with Israel, not only caused a fuel crisis in the automotive industry, but also had serious consequences in world football. First things first. Israel was one of the countries that founded the AFC - Asian Football Confederation in 1954. However, neighboring countries, mainly Arab ones, have consistently boycotted Israel, both politically and sportingly. Despite this, Israel took 2nd place in 1956 and 1960, 1st place in 1964 and 3rd place in the Asian Cup in 1968. In 1970, he played in his only World Championship, which took place in Mexico. There, in the group stage, Israel lost 0-2 to Uruguay, drew 0-0 with Sweden and 1-1 with Italy, and finished the competition in group 2 in 4th place with 2 points. Unfortunately, the Israeli-Arab conflict also found expression in football, and the culmination took place in 1973, when the Yom Kippur War broke out. All this led to the fact that in 1974, Kuwait initiated the procedure to expel Israel from the AFC. With 13 votes in favor, 11 against and 6 abstentions, Israel was excluded from the AFC structures. Then, from 1980, Israel was a member of OFC - the Oceania Football Conference, in which it fought for a ticket to the World Cup, which was to be held in Italy in 1990. After a 1-0 victory over New Zealand and three draws, Israel won Round 2 by 1 point, ahead of Australia and 2 against New Zealand, and lost to Colombia in the play-off 1-0. Israel joined UEFA - the Union of European Football Associations - in 1992, when local clubs can participate in European cups, and since 1994 it has been a permanent member of UEFA.

North Korea boycotting an Israel game is about the weirdest thing I have heard in a while. Thank you for educating us.

Happy birthday Alfie

Actually Sudan was supposed to qualify the 1958 world cup and could have easily qualified if they smashed israel. Sudan was actually the strongest national team in the region

Happy birthday Alfie, have a wonderful day! Thank you for all your hard work, this channel is my favourite when it comes to football

Happy birthday Cantwell. You should do a video doing his goal celebration 😂🕺🏼

Short answer: Many Israelis are migrants from Eastern Europe and they are not native to Levant. Their actual homeland is Europe for which being in UEFA makes sense. On the other hand, Palestinians are native to the region who are facing massacres, displacement and dispossession by the radical Zionists.

Happy birthday mate!!! Nice to see your knowledge and the good research you have done on my country Israel :)

Cool video. Politics spilling over into sports is a really interesting topic that I would like to see more videos on. Maybe how certain conflicts affected certain fixtures. Anyhow, that would be cool.

Israel geographically middle east but demographically Europe..

You could now do why australia qualify for world cups through the asian groups

I've always been told that it was Israel segregating themselves from Asians, now I know it is the Asians' fault for ditching Israel! Now that I know it, I'm kind of mad!

Wow your knowledge about isrealy history is realy good , love from isreal ♥️🇮🇱

Israel probably would have attended a few world cups if they were competing against Asian nations

Happy birthday, Alfie! No matter if it kicks off down here-appropriately put, I'd say. Thanks for doing a little homework even on your birthday 🎂 🎉

Happy birthday Alfie! About the vid i rly hope Israel will finally quality for a major tournament as I think if we stayed in Asia we would've probably been one of the top dogs there.. + Macabbi Haifa 3-0 Manchester United is probably the greatest achievement of an Israeli club (been there lol)

Just to clarify, the Palestinian FA changed to the Israeli FA but in name only, the Palestinian FA pre-1948, was run by Jews and the players were Jews.

Happy Birthday Alfie ! I hope you had fun. You're the one of the best football youtubers I've seen. And in case you do somehow read this comment, can you make a one- club men XI video ?

To be honest i don't think the inclusion in UEFA of a mediterranean country an hour flight from the greek islands with a 40% european population is that odd. Kazakhstan and Armenia seem a lot weirder.

Boycotting companies who did business with companies who traded with compaines who compaines who did business with companies who did business with companies who traded with compaines who compaines who did business with companies who did business with companies who traded with compaines who compaines who did business with israel.

What about Kazakhstan they also play in uefa but they are an Asian country

Is there really any part of Kazakhstan that's in Europe? Why do they play in UEFA?

Love your channel from Israel:)

Great video. History, Politics, and football discussed perfectly. And happy birthday too mate

Happy birthday big man! Big fan 🇳🇬

The question Is why Israel football team Is in UEFA when 99% of europeans hate them

7 best countries to never qualify for world cup. examples Zambia, Finland etc. Also Happy birthday. Also whose the other 4 countries to have played in 2 confederations. I know Australia have played in Ofc and Afc

Palestine also has a national team and unsurprisingly they've never played a match against the Israel national team.

Happy birthday! Love to see the civil and respectful comments

I'm from Israel , and I can say we don't really can play football against arabs countries , they don't really like us

Why isn’t there a FA for Central Asia? With countries as Kazakhstan in the North, Oman in the South, Afghanistan in the West and Azerbaijan in the East.

7 best or most successful clubs to have never won any major silverware

Why Israël? This is more logical than Kazachstan, that’s fucking crazy!

Why Kazakhstan is a member of UEFA?

Happy Birthday Alfie!! Love your videos, keep up the good work!! All the best wishes from your Canadian Fans

Happy Birthday Hull boi!

Europe isn’t near Israel . Anyone else know this ?

Well israeil is NOT a county ! Is orginal name is Palestine !

7 best football nations that never had a player playing in the champions league

Great video buddy! Cheers from Israel and Mazal Tov :)

Do 7 clubs who's women's team is better than the men's team

Soooo, Cyprus has cultural ties with Europe, but Israel doesn't???

At least in the case of Israel, they were basically kicked out of Asia due to the conflict with Muslim countries in Asia. But more oddly, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Armenia (all wholly in Asia) play in UEFA. These did result from the breakup of the Soviet Union. However, other former Soviet Republics in Central Asia play in AFC. Turkey, Georgia and Russia are UEFA, but they are at least trans-continental countries with part of their landmass in Europe. I would note that unlike the other continents which are defined by geography, Europe is a 'cultural' continent with an arbitrary border defined by the Urals, the Caucasus and the Bosphorus. [One last thing: I still can't wrap my head around how Australia participates in *EURO*vision....geographically almost as far as you can get unless you were in NZ.]

Happy Birthday you gorgeous hunk!

Then ask the same for the Eurovision, they took many victories, but Idc it is for a good reason, they won't stay isolated like that and they need to win sometimes (not against Arabs)

Happy birthday from Israel

Happy birthday Alfie! Keep it up with the great content!

I haven't seen the video yet but I'll go out on a limb and say it's because of politics. Happy birthday btw

Happy birthday!! Lucky to share it with this guy!

Hapoel Tel Aviv fan, great work!

Happy birthday Alfie. Great video as always 😊!

I’m from Israel, and I love how much you know about our football, you have an amazing knowledge, keep up the hard work💪

Great vid, well done keeping the politics out of it as much as you could, that takes a gentle hand.

am super intrigued with the Jewish culture no wonder that you are the one of leaders on the planet. I believe Israel/US/UK/Canada are super lucky nations. I actually give my attention to those Jewish and England cultures to learn and follow their habit, culture, and the way of gesture. I am super jealous of you guys. And I put my effort to assimilate into those of culture. Enjoy where you were born, guys! From Seoul, South Korea 한국

Happy Birthday Alfie nice video, i like this like of videos, i hope someday you could make one to explain why Suriname is playing the CONCACAF instead of CONMEBOL.

Because Israel not a country at all 😂 free Palestine 🇵🇸

Happy Birthday Alfie. Keep up the quality content my lad.

Sorry, never head of this place you call "Israel" before

Happy birthday Alfie :) this is a brilliant channel

LOVE FROM 🇮🇳 . INDIASTANDWITHISRAEL🇮🇱😘🇮🇳

I’m here after watching your Beitar Jerusalem video in 2022. Interesting to see how your voice and presentation style have changed since this video!

Israel shouldn't be in any football confederation :)

Kazakhstan was originally in the AFC when they became independent, but decided to join UEFA, even though like only 5-10% of the land is in EUROPE. Israel in UEFA, no Brainer. The Aussies were sick and tired of losing to them as they were made to play games against Oceanian nations.

#FreePalestine

Great video but we all know RU-vid will flag this video as Israel can never do anything wrong.

Long live 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 🇬🇧 💷 🇬🇧 🇻🇦 ✝️ ⛪ 💒 ☦ ⛪ 💒 Jesus God 🙏 🙌 Son of God Holly kudos 👏 🙌 👌

Not only Israel but also Turkey and Azerbaijan

Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Also, Happy Birthday!

Do why Azerbaijan is part of UEFA. There in Asia but part of UEFA.

You're walking on thin ice with this video...

Why Georgia,Armenia,Azerbaijan, Turkey too?

Free Palestine 🇵🇸 🇵🇸

While the reasons are most likley the relations with Arab countries it has very strong culutral ties to Europe too. To me as an European Israel was never considered Asian but European. Most Israeli's I spoke to feel ambivalent due to what "Europe" did in 40-45 in their view (it was mostly Germany but okey, let's not argue on such a sensitive topic). So I am fine with Israel being in Europe, not so much with its politicans and how they treat Palestinians (warcrimes, crimes against humanity and biological warfare as noted by diverse Human rights organisations).

Free Palestine

It's pretty sad how much Israel gets bullied in sport.....

I think he spelled Palestine wrong

Thanks for being fair and unbiased.(this coming from an avid pro Israel guy)

There are no israel and will never be

Can you do a video on the 7 best teams that compete in national tournaments in other sports.

They shouldn't be....#FreePalestine 🇵🇸🇵🇸

Happy Birthday Alfie! Keep it up