FIFA Kiill all Jews fantasy League
FIFA Kiill all Jews fantasy LeagueBarry Shaw

Rabid Jew haters manage to spread their poison in the most innocuous, even the most harmonious corners.

Recently, and as an avid football fan, I came across the disgusting stench of anti-Semitism on FIFA's official World Cup webpage.

I hastily inform you that it wasn't placed there by FIFA. In fact, I think they have been too busy with the global festival of soccer in Qatar to notice.

However, I did try to bring it to their attention.

Let me explain.

Joining in the fun as a football enthusiast, I eagerly set up a fictional team in the FIFA World Cup Fantasy competition.

You have to apply your skills in selecting a team of actual players participating for their countries in the World Cup.

It would be easy to simply pick out the very best players but you are given a limited budget and this challenges you to select less valuable players with potential to shine.

The FIFA website rewards or punishes your selected players depending on if they score goals, or get a yellow card. There are other criteria that will have your team rise or fall against ten million global participants.

To make your fun even more interesting, you can find smaller, more localized leagues set up by other players, and it was in that spirit that I went exploring for compatible leagues to join.

The FIFA website helps by providing a search link to the myriad of leagues that thousands of fans have set up, so I began to type in keywords like "Israel" and "Jewish" to find fellow soccer enthusiasts.

Imagine my shock when after typing the word "Jew" and clicking the search button I came across a league set up by someone using the strange nom de plume "Kneegah."

This public league was called "Kill All Jews."

Clearly FIFA, presumably without its knowledge, had allowed a rabid Jew hater to park himself publicly on their website at the height of the biggest football competition in the world.

This is where it gets insidious for FIFA.

FIFA has been caught out facing in opposite directions when it comes to human rights and anti-racism issues.

For an organization claiming they wanted this World Cup to be as diverse as possible, Qatar was not the venue to express such values. Qatar has been accused of the most inhumane activities, particularly to its army of underpaid imported laborers toiling under the most dangerous and appalling conditions to build the wonderful venues we see today.

Respecting the restrictions demanded by an intolerant Qatar, FIFA insisted that they would not tolerate national teams or individual footballers displaying human rights logos on their apparel.

And, shortsightedly, despite their claims to protect freedoms and people from racist abuse, there is nowhere on their expensive website to post a warning about an inciter using that website to spout violence against you and me.

And so, today, at the time of writing this article, three days into the World Cup, FIFA is hosting a World Cup league on its website, calling for the murder of Jews.

Barry Shaw,is International Public Diplomacy Director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.and author of the book 'Fighting Hamas, BDS & Anti-Semitism.'