UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government was holding urgent talks on Friday to overturn a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending a match at Aston Villa that Israel’s government branded “shameful”.
Birmingham-based Villa said the club had been informed by the Safety Advisory Group (SAG), responsible for issuing certificates for matches, that no away fans would be permitted at the Europa League match on November 6.
“Shameful decision! I call on the UK authorities to reverse this coward decision,” the foreign minister of Israel, Gideon Saar, posted on X.
A UK police commissioner asked local officials to review the decision as criticism of the ban mounted, including from Starmer and European governing body UEFA.
Starmer, a keen football fan, called the move “wrong”.
“We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets. The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation,” Starmer wrote on X.
A spokesman for the prime minister said on Friday that conversations were “happening at pace across government and with all the relevant groups to find a way to resolve this”.
Britain’s Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, whose brief includes sport, was set to meet interior ministry officials and other stakeholders.
UEFA, which runs the Europa League, called on the clubs and authorities to “agree on the implementation of appropriate measures necessary to allow” Maccabi fans to be able to attend.
Simon Foster, the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands area, which covers Villa Park, called on SAG and the police to “conduct an immediate review” to determine whether the ban is “appropriate” and “necessary”.
But a number of left-wing independent and Green politicians in Britain backed the ban, with some calling for the wider exclusion of Israeli teams from international competitions over the war in Gaza, similar to the sporting boycott of apartheid South Africa.
– Public safety concerns –
Villa issued a statement on Thursday saying West Midlands Police had advised the SAG they had “public safety concerns outside the stadium bowl and the ability to deal with any potential protests on the night”.
Police said they had classified the fixture as “high risk” following a “thorough assessment”.
“This decision is based on current intelligence and previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 UEFA Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam,” a spokesperson for the West Midlands force said.
Last November’s match between Dutch side Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv resulted in two days of violent clashes between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli fans.
Supporters of the Israeli team were assaulted in Amsterdam in hit-and-run attacks.
The attacks were the culmination of skirmishes in which Maccabi fans chanted anti-Arab songs, vandalised a taxi and pulled down a Palestinian flag.
Emily Damari, a British-Israeli who was captured during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and held captive for more than a year, said the ban would prevent her from going to watch Maccabi, the team she supports.
“Football is a way of bringing people together irrespective of their faith, colour or religion, and this disgusting decision does the exact opposite,” she said in a statement.
Maccabi fan Tamir Nahson, 37, a wine importer in Israel, told AFP it was a “missed opportunity”.
“It’s very painful that the (country) has become the UK for anti-Semitism. It’s very painful, it’s very unpleasant for us and I guess it’s also disappointing for Aston Villa fans.”
Maccabi Tel Aviv chief executive Jack Angelides told BBC radio the team had travelled to other countries where he said the sentiment is “not so kind towards Israeli teams” but the police “were out in force” and there were no incidents.
The war has killed at least 67,967 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The United Nations considers the figures to be credible.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
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