[a] The team was founded in 1928 by Yosef Yekutieli, leader of the Jewish sports organisation Maccabi World Union, under the newly formed "Palestine Football Association", so-named in order to qualify for membership of FIFA (which required teams to be representative of the population of their country).

It achieved FIFA membership in 1929, despite in practice being an almost exclusively Jewish organisation at a time when Jews represented a minority of the country's population.

It was accepted to FIFA on 6 June 1929 as the Palestine Football Association, following an application by the Jewish Maccabi World Union.

[5] By FIFA rules, the association had to represent all of Palestine's population, and it made formal claims to that effect.

[2][6][b] Mandatory Palestine played five international games before the end of the British Mandate in 1948 which resulted in Israel's independence.