Underdog Stories / Football history

Why Is Chile's Palestino Called a Palestinian Football Club?

Why is Palestino a Palestinian football club in Chile? Immigrants founded it in 1920, and the name, colours and map have outlasted a century and a fine.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · July 3, 2026

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In January 2014, Palestino played three league games with a map of historic Palestine where the number 1 should have been. The club wore the original jerseys in three games that month, and the shirts debuted on January 4 against Everton, a match Palestino won. The league fined them sixteen days later.

That's the quick way to see what kind of club this is. Here is the plain answer to why Palestino is a Palestinian football club in Chile. Palestinian immigrants founded it in 1920, and it has kept the colours of the Palestinian flag and a map of pre-1948 Palestine in its logo and kit. It exists because an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 people of Palestinian descent live in Chile, the largest Palestinian community outside the Arab world.

Chris Horwedel's Why We Love This Club episode, "Club Deportivo Palestino — Chile's Palestinian Football Story", puts it his own way. Politics didn't wander into this club's football. Football was one of the ways a community far from home kept hold of who it was.

How did Chile end up with the largest Palestinian community outside the Arab world?

By a long and slightly absurd route. Santiago sits some 13,220 kilometres from Jerusalem. Chris puts it at more than 8,000 miles, which is the sort of distance you only appreciate once somebody says it out loud.

The first arrivals came in the late 19th century, mostly Christians from Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour. They carried Ottoman passports, which got them called turcos. They met racism and prejudice at first.

Many landed in Buenos Aires and found Syrians and Lebanese already there. The Palestinians didn't fancy the competition. They kept going, over the Andes and into Chile, and early on that meant a dangerous trek by mule. After 1910 most new arrivals took the train.

Once a few families settled, more followed. Between 1901 and 1909 alone, 118 people from Beit Jala families and 86 from Bethlehem families arrived in Chile. In places like Beit Jala, it is often said, there is hardly a family without relatives in Chile. They became merchants, artisans, farmers and professionals, and by the early 20th century they were established traders and entrepreneurs.

When and where was Palestino founded?

In the south, in Osorno, at a sports contest between immigrant communities. The club was founded on 8 August 1920, when its founders took part in a colonial competition there.

Even the birthday is disputed. Chris notes that some records say August 8 and others August 20, and at least one profile gives the 20th. A third account, in a piece on Chile's Palestinians, says the club began in 1916 as a tennis club. Nobody has produced a signed founding paper that settles it.

The modern club came later. Palestina Sport Club (1924) and Club Palestino (1938) merged on 8 August 1941 to form Club Deportivo Palestino.

At first it was close to a private affair. One account says the club admitted only people of Arab origin until it turned professional, then opened its doors to everyone. Professionalism came in 1952. The club spent 32 years as an amateur side, then won the second division in its first professional season and went up. Three years later it was champion of Chile.

How did Palestino win the league in 1955 and 1978?

The 1955 title came with money. The team was nicknamed millonario, the Millionaires, for its ability to attract top players. It was coached by the Argentine captain Roberto Coll. A club built to hold an immigrant community together reached the top of its adopted country's football almost at once.

The 1978 team is the one people still talk about. Elías Figueroa, whom Chris calls generally regarded as the greatest Chilean defender ever, came home from Brazil to play for it. He had been South American Footballer of the Year three years running. In attack was Óscar Fabbiani. He scored 35 goals to win the scoring title, with the next man on 25.

The numbers are silly. Palestino won 23 league games and lost four, and went 44 matches unbeaten. The defence let in only 32 goals in 34 games. The streak began in 1977 and ran into 1978, a Chilean record.

“Most football clubs tell you where they are. This one tells you where the founders came from.”
— Chris Horwedel, on Why We Love This Club

Then came the Copa Libertadores. Palestino finished first in its 1979 group without losing, then reached the semi-finals and lost to Olimpia of Paraguay, who went on to win it. It is still the club's best international run.

Fabbiani left that season for the Tampa Bay Rowdies. He said goodbye on the pitch against O'Higgins on 28 March 1979, scored the winner and, according to one Chilean account, cried at the ovation. It's a decent way to leave.

What was the 2014 Palestino jersey map controversy?

It started with a complaint. Patrick Kiblisky, owner of rival first-division club Ñublense, sent a formal complaint to the federation. Gerardo Gorodischer, then president of Chile's Jewish community, demanded an apology. Chris says Israel's government got involved too.

The league, the ANFP, fined the club by unanimous decision on January 20. It said it opposed "any form of political, religious, sexual, ethnic, social or racial discrimination."

The accounts differ on the details. The Times of Israel put the fine at about $1,300. A Guardian piece reproduced by TeachMideast says $15,000. A fan-run history site says the fine was strictly for breaking a rule on the size of shirt numbers, not for the map. I'd say the club's critics and defenders both read the ruling to suit themselves.

Palestino paid up. President Fernando Aguad said the club would comply, pay and not appeal. But the club said on Facebook that free Palestine would always be historical Palestine, nothing less. The map moved to the front of the shirt. One account says the players then tattooed the map on their forearms. A critic from the Chile-Israel Council claimed the club sold more than 7,000 of the banned shirts.

Chris doesn't pretend it's simple. He says the row is easy to shrink to a culture-war headline, and that the century behind it is what gives it weight. The objections were real as well. Critics said the map claims all of Israel as Palestinian territory. The club's answer is that the map is its identity.

What is the Clásico de Colonias?

It's the derby of the immigrant communities. Palestino plays Unión Española and Audax Italiano, the clubs of Chile's Spanish and Italian colonies. Chris's line is that this turns immigration history into a league fixture.

It also closes a loop. Palestino was born at a contest between colonies in Osorno, and now its biggest local games carry the name. In 2018 it ended a 40-year trophy drought by beating Audax Italiano in the Copa Chile final. The episode counts 41 years since the previous cup, 1977. The Palestinian club beat the Italian one for the cup. Nobody planned that.

Why is Palestino a Palestinian football club in Chile and not just a Chilean one?

Because the name, the colours and the map were never dropped, even when dropping them would have been cheaper.

One account, from the writer Lina Meruane's interview in Scene Arabia, says that soon after the Nakba the club's president was offered $200,000 by Chile's Jewish community to change the name from "Palestino" to "Árabe". That's one source, and I haven't seen it confirmed elsewhere. If true, the club turned down a lot of money to keep one word.

The slogan is "Todo un pueblo", an entire people. Chris admits it's grand language for a football team. He says the club doesn't claim to speak for every Palestinian political view, but it is one of the most visible sporting symbols of Palestinian history in the world.

The weekly pull is the point. Chris says you don't need Arabic, a particular church or a trip to the Middle East to take part. You wear the shirt and watch the match. The link runs both ways too. The club has received letters of support from Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat. In 2019 it installed TV screens in Ramallah so locals could watch two games against River Plate. In 2025, Rania Sansour became the first woman of Palestinian descent to play for Palestino while also playing for the Palestine national team.

On a team sheet, the club is Chilean all the way down. Home is the Estadio Municipal de La Cisterna, in a southern commune of Santiago. Chris says it had no permanent floodlights for roughly 35 years, so the big night games had to be played somewhere else. Then in 2025 it got four 40-metre towers carrying 84 LED fixtures. A club that had spent a century being watched from across an ocean could finally play after dark at home.