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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/Sparksquidme on 2025-08-14 08:59:07+00:00.
Gesture comes days after Mohamed Salah criticised the governing body for not naming Israel in its tribute to the ‘Palestinian Pele’
Uefa risked dragging itself into a political storm by displaying a giant “Stop Killing Children – Stop Killing Civilians” banner on the pitch before the Super Cup.
The large display was placed in front of players as they lined up before kick-off at Stadio Friuli in Udine, Italy, with two refugee children from Gaza taking part in the medal ceremony.
Europe’s governing body announced on the eve of the match that one of the children was a 12-year-old girl called Tala, who would join Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin for the medal ceremony.
Uefa described her as “a young Palestinian girl with fragile health who was transferred to Milan to receive appropriate medical care, as the adequate equipment was lacking in Gaza after the start of the war”. The other child in the ceremony was Mohamed, a nine-year-old who lost his parents in the war following an air strike in Gaza.
Under its own rules, Uefa states that political messages cannot be promoted in stadiums before, during or after matches. Uefa had children from conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Palestine and Ukraine involved in the opening ceremony and did not name a specific war with its banner.