Iraq's men's football team beat Ukraine 2-1 in Lyon on Wednesday and lost 3-1 to Argentina in a Paris 2024 group stage match on Saturday. To the Iraqi team's surprise, there was an Israeli flag next to theirs, which did not sit well with the Arab delegation, who tried to separate it.

"When we arrived at the Lyon stadium (on Wednesday), we found the Iraqi flag next to the Israeli flag," Herda Raouf said, even though the Israeli team does not play in Lyon.

Raouf, whose country does not recognise the state of Israel and supports the Palestinian cause, added that his delegation had asked a representative of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) "to move or remove the Israeli flag", but their request was rejected.

According to Raouf, the committee's representative argued that "the flags of all participating countries in the men's and women's football matches must be displayed in alphabetical order".

Raouf added that his delegation emailed a formal protest to the IOC with the same request before the Argentina match, but the request was again rejected.

French security forces identified Wednesday's Ukraine-Iraq and Israel-Mali matches as high-risk events, although there were no major incidents.

Around 1,000 French police officers were deployed to provide security at Israel's match against Mali, where fans waved Palestinian and Israeli flags.

A similar situation arose at the Parc des Princes for Paraguay's 4-2 win over Israel, where security forces anticipated potential problems that did not materialise. The match went smoothly and, despite Palestinian flags in the stands and some chanting, there were no incidents involving Israeli fans inside or outside the stadium near the French capital.

The Palestinian Olympic Committee wrote to the IOC last week asking for Israeli athletes to be banned from the Paris Olympics over the Gaza war, but the request was rejected.