A/HRC/62/55 12. The Special Rapporteur also received information about sports infrastructure and resources that have been destroyed by indiscriminate attacks by Israeli forces. For example, during the recent manifestations of the armed conflict, sports clubs, stadiums, youth centres and playgrounds in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. The destruction has a disproportionate impact on Palestinians because of pre-existing systemic underinvestment in sports facilities and the lack of other resources resulting from the prolonged illegal Israeli occupation. The Special Rapporteur also received information about the killing and deliberate maiming of athletes, coaches, referees, sports administrators and scouts by Israeli occupation forces. In addition, there are reportedly numerous cases of arbitrary detention and torture of Palestinian athletes.19 13. Similarly, ongoing conflicts have had a profoundly detrimental impact on the development and sustainability of sports in many conflict-affected States in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, the Sudan, and South Sudan. Political instability and armed violence have disrupted sporting infrastructure, limited athlete participation and reduced institutional support for sports development. For example, the armed conflict in the Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has precipitated the near-total collapse of organized sporting life across the country. There is substantial information about football in African conflict contexts, which demonstrates that sporting institutions and infrastructures are vulnerable to disruption during periods of armed violence and that football frequently functions as both a casualty of war and a mechanism of post-conflict reconstruction. 20 Displacement has emerged as a defining feature of wartime experience for Sudanese athletes, reflecting wider trends within the contemporary international sporting system. Scholarly literature on forced migration and elite sport has further emphasized that refugee athletes occupy a paradoxical position, simultaneously valorized within international institutions and marginalized within hostcountry sporting ecosystems.21 14. The experience of the Sudan must be situated within a broader pattern observable across African conflict zones, where sporting institutions have repeatedly emerged as both casualties of armed violence and sites of political contestation. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, prolonged armed conflict, including the ongoing crisis precipitated by the Mouvement du 23 mars insurgency in the eastern provinces, has fundamentally reshaped national football structures, with sporting institutions becoming entangled with regime patronage, soft-power competition and the displacement of athletes and supporters. 22 The disintegration of football infrastructure in the Sudan and the politicization of football in the Democratic Republic of the Congo together illustrate the vulnerability of African sporting institutions to the disruptive effects of sustained armed violence and conflict. The disintegration of Sudanese sport reflects not the suspension of recreational activity alone, but the destruction of social, cultural and institutional structures of fundamental importance to community cohesion and national identity. C. Discriminatory eligibility regulations 15. Eligibility regulations are a powerful arbitrator of who can and who cannot participate in competitive sport. There is significant potential for discrimination if eligibility regulations are not developed and enforced in alignment with international human rights law, including 19 20 21 22 GE.26-07112 Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, General List No. 186 and A/80/337. Submission from the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva. Gary Armstrong, “Talking up the game: football and the reconstruction of Liberia, West Africa”, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, vol. 9, No. 4 (September 2002). Ramón Spaaij and others, “Sport, refugees, and forced migration: a critical review of the literature”, Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, vol. 1 (October 2019). Tamba Nlandu, “Football in DR Congo: a critical account of ‘Congolese football’”, in Football (Soccer) in Africa: Origins, Contributions, and Contradictions, Augustine E. Ayuk, ed.(Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), and Marko Begović and Simon Chadwick, “Geopolitics and sports”, Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, vol. 7 (September 2025). 5