Faiz Abrahams’ success can’t hide the bigger issue: SA clubs should stop selling players to Israel
Amajita forward Faiz Abrahams has impressed on the field since joining Israeli club Hapoel Kfar Saba on loan from Stellenbosch FC.
Image: Weam Mostafa/BackpagePix
The loan move of 20-year-old Faiz Abrahams from Stellenbosch FC to Israeli side Hapoel Kfar Saba has reopened a debate South African football has avoided for far too long.
On the field, Abrahams has been excellent: he has already played 11 matches, scoring three goals and providing three assists, and has started most of the club’s games. Hapoel Kfar Saba are currently sixth in the league with 19 points from 12 matches, and the winger has quickly become an important part of their campaign.
Abrahams’ transfer to Israel came weeks after Orlando Pirates starlet Relebohile Mofokeng was reportedly linked with Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa. And earlier this year, Bafana defender Rushine De Reuck spent time in the Israeli Premier League with Maccabi Petah Tikva. These represent a growing trend of South African players engaging with Israeli football at a time of immense global scrutiny.
Abrahams’ footballing success unfolds against one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the modern era. According to the latest reports, the death toll in Gaza is now estimated to exceed 69,000.
In this context, South African football’s continued willingness to send players to Israeli clubs raises an uncomfortable question: What does it say about us – as a footballing nation born from international solidarity – when we continue to normalise sporting ties with a state accused of widespread human-rights violations?
South Africa itself is a living reminder of how powerful sporting isolation can be. The boycott of apartheid-era sport was a crucial element in placing international pressure on the National Party government. Nelson Mandela understood this deeply when he declared: “Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
To uphold that legacy is a matter of principle. No one denies that opportunities in Israel may benefit individual players like Abrahams. But sport does not exist in a vacuum, and South Africa cannot ignore the moral weight of the moment. Each new transfer normalises a relationship that many around the world believe should be suspended until meaningful progress is made toward ending the suffering in Gaza.
If football truly has, in Mandela’s words, “the power to change the world,” then it must be willing to draw a line – not for symbolic politics, but for the values that once united the world behind our own struggle.
IOL Sport
* The views expressed are not necessarily the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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