After a nearly two-year ban, the Palestinian flag is returning to Major League Soccer. Columbus Crew, one of the league’s top teams, signed Palestinian national team forward Wessam Abou Ali late last month for a $7.5 million transfer fee, not including bonuses. The club’s official supporters group, the Nordecke, immediately asked to be allowed to display the Palestinian flag in the stadium as a show of support for Abou Ali.
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Wessam Abou Ali is welcomed to the Columbus Crew by coach Wilfried Nancy
(Photo: Jason Mowry/Getty Images)
MLS enforces strict rules against political protest signs in stadiums, but national flags are generally permitted—with one exception. The Israeli and Palestinian flags were banned shortly after the October 7 Hamas massacre. But Philadelphia Union fans were allowed to keep flying the Israeli flag, since the club had signed Israeli striker Tai Baribo about two months earlier.
Nordecke requested a similar exemption, and the league granted permission for one national flag per player to be displayed in a designated area at Lower.com Field. The approval does not allow fans to bring in Palestinian flags themselves—the club will supply and install the flag. The policy also applies only at Columbus home games, not at away matches or other MLS venues.
“The Columbus Crew embrace soccer’s power to bring together people from all walks of life in our locker rooms, stadium and community,” the team said in a statement.
Abou Ali, 26, was born in Denmark to Palestinian parents. He represented Denmark’s youth national teams before switching in March to play for the Palestinian national team, where he has scored four goals in 10 appearances. “It is a great honor to represent my country and my people,” he said at his introduction in Ohio. “I’ll not go to politics because I’ve never done that, that’s not my thing, but to be a big face of the Palestinian national team and the people is of course a thing I’m proud of.”
Abou Ali joined Columbus from Egypt’s Al Ahly, where he played in this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup in the United States and scored a hat trick against Porto in the group stage, drawing international attention. Off the field, he also made headlines with politically charged goal celebrations: at the Club World Cup, he mimicked a cartoon image of a Palestinian child as a symbol of resistance, and last year he recreated a famous pose of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar weeks after his death, sitting on a chair taken from a photographer in a gesture referencing a widely circulated photo.
Palestinian organizations welcomed MLS’s decision. “The flag represents not only Abou Ali’s identity but also the resilience and pride of the Palestinian people,” the Palestinian Football Association said. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), however, criticized MLS for remaining silent on “the destruction Israel inflicts on Palestinian soccer,” saying: “You cannot conduct business as usual amid genocide or apartheid.”