When I began investigating this story, I thought it was a disturbing tale of an accredited football journalist using elite Premier League grounds as a platform for the glorification of terrorism. Horrific enough on its own. But as the story unfolded, something even darker emerged – the silence, impotence, and complicity of those in the UK charged with safeguarding the game. And perhaps, behind it all, a deeper fear – a reluctance to challenge the Qatari money that put him there.

Discovery

Unlike most of my research pieces, I did not turn over the first stone myself. After speaking at a hostage vigil in NW London one Friday morning, I was approached by Max Radford – an avid football fan and Jewish activist with a strong presence on social media. Max told me that he was aware of a sports journalist who had been using accredited access to Premier League grounds as a backdrop to promote pro-Palestinian political messaging. He had downloaded several clips – hard evidence that could not be brushed aside – and shared them with me. Together we wrote emails to the FA, the Premier League, and to relevant Premier League Clubs – and then I set about digging deeper into the journalist’s timeline.

The Accredited Journalist and beIN Sports

Some people enjoy VIP treatment at every football match – prime seats, hospitality, and access to almost everything and everyone. That access comes through a layered system of media accreditation and agreements between clubs, leagues, broadcasters, and governing bodies. But I am confident of one thing – none of their codes of conduct permit the glorification of terrorism.

Ibrahim Khadra is an accredited sports journalist for beIN Sports. A British-Palestinian, he originally came to London courtesy of BBC Arabic (who else!) in 2009 – but eventually ended up working as a sports journalist for Al Jazeera Sports – which rebranded as beIN Sports in 2014.

beIN holds multi-year broadcast rights to Premier League matches (and other competitions). Because of those contracts, beIN is treated as an official rights-holding broadcaster. This status grants them privileges that non-rights media don’t have. And in financial terms, the Premier League’s international deal with the Qatari state-owned broadcaster is one of the most lucrative overseas contracts the league possesses.

The 8th of October 2023

On 8 October 2023, Arsenal played Manchester City at the Emirates and won 1-0. While Israeli towns had still not been cleared of Hamas terrorists, Ibrahim Khadra attended the match wearing a keffiyeh. He was asked to remove it, and later complained on X that he had been told it constituted ‘political messaging.’

What makes this even more notable is that during the same game, another beIN journalist, Issam Chaouali, delivered on-air political commentary about Gaza.

In the fallout from these incidents, beIN acknowledged that Chaouali’s comments were ‘inappropriate’ and reminded all staff that they were ‘obliged to refrain from political statements.’ In its statement to journalists, beIN emphasised that social-media freedom did not extend to hate speech. The report also confirmed that ‘beIN Sports and the Premier League discussed the matter’ and suggested that the Premier League would be ‘issuing guidance.’

All of which makes everything that followed over the next two years simply inexplicable. A prolonged and inexcusable blindness on the part of beIN, the Premier League, UEFA, the FA – and anyone else who should have been monitoring what was taking place in our stadiums.

But before we go forward, let us quickly address the events of the day before.

The 7th of October 2023

No one appeared to have checked what Ibrahim Khadra had posted the previous day on his social media. His post from 7 October 2023 is vile – using football analogies to glorify the Hamas attacks. He talks about goals ‘piercing the enemy’s net’ and even declared that the events in Gaza were ‘far more exciting than football.’ It is difficult to understand how open celebration of Hamas atrocities is not considered ‘hate speech’ by his beIN employers.

Two years of political messaging (or worse)

Ibrahim Khadra has active profiles on X, Instagram and TikTok. Since October 7, he has used these platforms to spread political messages – often filmed inside Premier League stadiums using his media accreditation – to push propaganda (or extremist content) about Gaza. Despite having been told not to wear a Keffiyeh on October 8 2023 – he appears to have taken that as a message he could deliberately ignore.

Over the last two years – Khadra’s Keffiyeh has toured many of the UK’s most iconic football clubs. And despite almost every club in the UK holding strict ‘no-politics‘ policies that cover ‘all persons seeking entry to the stadium’ – nobody seemed to want to stop him (images showing examples from Arsenal, Spurs, Fulham, West Ham and Chelsea)

The Glorification of terrorism from Premier League Clubs

Khadra posted countless videos using Premier League grounds as a backdrop for political propaganda. In one clip he criticised Salah ‘for having time to celebrate Christmas’, but ‘no time to comment on Gaza’. In most, his message contains both a demonisation of Israel and extreme religious nationalism. But in several videos his support for Hamas and other terrorist factions in Gaza became more explicit. In one clip, filmed at Stamford Bridge, he even uploaded an image of Nasrallah as news broke of his death – and in the accompanying text, he provides a statement of honour, and sacrifice – referring to him as a ‘righteous martyr’.

He filmed this next video at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium of all places – on 22 December 2024 when they hosted Liverpool. In the clip, Khadra explicitly talks up the ‘resistance in the field’ standing ‘heart and soul’ with them. He even criticises Palestinian security forces in PA areas – for suppressing armed resistance groups.

The next one is from the Emirates. Khadra derides the PA and the Palestinian President – before embarking on a football analogy that suggests the radical Islamic terror groups are the Premier League of Palestinian political expression.

No room for argument

When Khadra speaks of violent resistance, he knows what he is referring to. For over a decade, he has been posting comments that glorify terrorism and celebrate the death of innocents. Here are just a few examples. The first is where he calls the murder of seven Jews outside a synagogue in Jerusalem a ‘heroic operation‘. He even goes on to attack anyone who condemns the terrorist attack.

The second example comes from May 2021, where he boasts about the Ayyash 250 rocket that Hamas has fired – and explicitly glorifies Yahya Ayyash – the Hamas engineer – responsible for bombs that murdered approximately 100 Israelis – including the devastating bus bombing in Dizengoff in October 1994.

The third example is explicit in its glorification of Hamas terrorists: Khadra posts an image describing the Hamas ambush near Rafah as worthy of qualifying for the Champions League final. The image is a screenshot from a Hamas video which shows the deadly Hamas attacks on Israeli forces.

The fourth post appears to celebrate the total destruction of a civilian building in Bat Yam on June 15th – when it was struck by an Iranian ballistic missile. This single strike killed nine people – including two children – and wounded over 100.

He mourns their death – he celebrates their lives

The 2023 war saw the death of many of the leading terrorist figures in the Middle East. Khadra openly mourned for terrorist leaders – and even celebrated the lives of those who died long ago. For example, he posted a video of Sheikh Yassin – founder of Hamas – promising Israel will be destroyed by 2027. And he was ‘broken-hearted’ over the death of Ismail Haniyeh.

The indifference of those who safeguard the sport

While I was still uncovering the full horror of pro-terrorist support that Khadra publicly displayed, Max and I sent off several emails on 27th August to let the authorities know this was going on. A couple of clubs did indicate they had turned to the Premier League for guidance – and we received one from the Premier League informing us they were  ‘looking into it’. And then it went quiet.

Eventually – after reminder emails had been ignored, it became clear that the lack of action was no longer an oversight – it was a story that also needed to be told. The entire force behind ‘Kick It Out’ did not seem to care when it came to the promotion of radical Islamic terrorism. So we sent a final email – giving them all (the Clubs, UEFA, the FA, beIN, and the Premier League) – a right to reply and asking them to explain their indifference.

We also included an analogy. We pointed out that if this were about a white supremacist celebrating the horrific attacks on Christchurch – and glorifying white supremacist terrorist murder – the matter would have been publicly dealt with in hours. But with an Islamist openly supporting radical Islamic terror groups – they all just shrug or look the other way. The double standard is impossible to ignore.

The non-responses UEFA and beIN

And what about Khadra’s actual employer? Not a word from beIN – no response to any email – and no sign they did anything other than perhaps quietly tell their employee to delete a few posts (which he only partly did).

Qatari money runs through the world of football – and this is where it leaves us – completely impotent – even when someone has clearly breached beIN’s own guidelines and statements. They knew – and then they failed to monitor or carry out the basic due diligence to ensure that their own employees do not breach guidelines. They need to be held to account.

And UEFA’s silence is also inexplicable. UEFA guidelines are published and they are beyond clear:

And here is Khadra – at Wembley, following the Champions League Final – using the stadium and the platform to send out political messages about Israel’s destruction:

The Responses – FA deflection and the Premier League bully

Both the FA and Premier League responded to our ‘right to reply’. The FA simply passed the buck completely – also saying they had never accredited him – and telling us to turn to others to complain to.

These are images of Khadra at Wembley – on just two of the occasions he entered the FA’s iconic stadium, and stood on the hallowed turf, under media accreditation. As far as I am aware – the FA Cup is not a UEFA competition – nor is the FA Charity Shield. It makes the FA email nonsensical.

If the FA is using some type of technicality – such as third-party accreditation – to believe that absolves them of responsibility – it only helps to expose how rotten those sitting at the top of our game truly are. Wembley is their brand to guard.

And then there is this. Khadra using Wembley accreditation as a promotional background for a political video that even references the Palestinian resistance (‘armed struggle’).

It is simply beyond all understanding that the FA have washed their hands of this. This man did this in the English National Stadium. If the FA do not care about this level of abuse – they should all quit and hand over to people that would.

An even worse response came from the Premier League. Not only did it completely wash Premier League hands of everything to do with the matter but the opening line of the email carried a personal warning that the email is ‘NOT FOR PUBLICATION’ – in big bold letters. Gareth Mills, the Premier League’s ‘Director of News and Corporate Communications’, obviously did not look me up before sending it – so here is the email that is ‘not for publication’:

It is worth pointing out that I never made any such agreement over non-disclosure – this is a corporate email – and there is no private information included in it. So it is fair game for publication. But Gareth Mills knows this – and this email is just indicative of the way things work on these types of issues. Bullying email statements such as this are intended to intimidate the recipient. It never works with me.

The response itself is stunning. The same analogy applies – if this was a white supremacist – would a behind-the-doors deletion of a few of his offensive posts have been enough to placate the Premier League? And they’re wrong – only some of his Instagram posts were deleted – and only there. His TikTok and X accounts currently appear fully intact with dozens of examples of offensive content.

The complaint was not about a single incident – Khadra was a serial offender over numerous venues covering a period of several years. So this email tells us that Mills did not even bother to do a proper check before trying to intimidate us and fob us off to Khadra’s Qatari state employer – ‘beIN.’

But the bottom line concerns our home turf. This is about radical Islamic terrorism being glorified and promoted, on Premier League grounds – and at Wembley – using iconic stadium branding to gain it even more traction – and neither the Premier League nor the FA seems to give a damn. Make of that what you will.

 

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