A sign advertising a commercial organization that supports Israel on the shirts of the Tunisian national football team, during its training before its match with Guinea Bissau, yesterday evening, Wednesday, sparked widespread anger in Tunisia.
Activists denounced the Tunisian Football League’s dealings with companies that support Israel, especially in light of the widespread campaigns in Tunisia and the world to boycott that brand. Activist Adel Al-Saadani called for a boycott of the Tunisian national team and wrote, “Everyone who has an ounce of faith in the nation’s cause should boycott this national team.” Carrefour is the entity’s largest financier. “The usurper, the nation’s cause.”
The advertisement was attacked, and activist Mohamed Manjour published pictures of Israeli soldiers carrying food bags of the same brand and pictures of the Tunisian national team, and commented on Facebook: “So, is there a lack of celebrities? The suspected Carrefour on the national team’s shirt is a supporter of brutal Zionism. Carrefour distributes meals to… Soldiers of ethnic cleansing.
He asked, “Who decided to advertise? And do not tell me that Carrefour Tunisia has nothing to do with the mother Carrefour, which supports ethnic cleansing. The world is revolving and I spoke about injustice! How humiliating!”
Platform pioneers denounced the Tunisian national team’s failure to participate in the boycott, despite the major campaign that Tunisia has witnessed against Carrefour since the beginning of the war on Gaza. Activist Tommy Ben Farhat wrote, “While you and I are boycotting… the national team chooses to place the Carrefour logo in bold print on its shirt, and advertises the company that It provides the occupation army with food during the war of extermination that it is waging against the defenseless people in the Gaza Strip. The advertising money can be dispensed with… an entire state against the Zionists and their financiers.”
Fans at Rades Stadium, during the match between Tunisia and Equatorial Guinea on Wednesday night, protested against the Tunisian national team wearing T-shirts with the Carrefour brand, and raised a large banner in which they quoted the phrase “Carrefour, the official supporter of the Tunisian national team,” and replaced it with “Carrefour, the official supporter of genocide.”
The Carrefour Boycott Campaign Group in Tunisia published a statement in which it condemned the Tunisian Football League’s dealings with supporters of the Israeli occupation in its genocide in Gaza, and said, “At a time when we, as a people, public, and campaigns, are desperate to defend the option of boycotting Zionist products and institutions that support Zionism, the university continues The Tunisian Football Association has an advertising contract with the Zionist Carrefour company, and publishes pictures of the national team’s training in which its players wear T-shirts bearing the Carrefour brand stained with the blood of women and children. This is a disgrace that will haunt Tunisia, its national team and its players in front of the eyes of all the peoples of the world.
The Football League has not issued any clarifications regarding the matter until now.