The Safety Advisory Group (SAG) has told Villa that travelling fans will not be permitted to attend the match at Villa Park on November 6, a controversial verdict which UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already criticised.<\/p>\n
There are concerns about disorder and protest related to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, but Starmer issued a strong statement on X opposing the ruling.<\/p>\n
Now culture department minister Ian Murray has suggested the matter is not closed.<\/p>\n
Mr Murray told Sky News: \u201cThe Prime Minister and the Government have been clear about that. In fact, pretty much every politician has been clear about that. It\u2019s just completely and utterly unacceptable, and the Prime Minister has said we will do everything we possibly can to resolve this issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an operational issue for the police, and Government doesn\u2019t get involved in operational issues for the police. But I know the Culture Secretary of State (Lisa Nandy) will be meeting with the Home Office and other stakeholders today to try and see if there\u2019s a way through this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starmer had earlier written on X: \u201cThis is the wrong decision. We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maccabi\u2019s chief executive Jack Angelidis finds the judgement difficult to comprehend and has deep concerns about the meaning and motivation behind it.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be frank, it\u2019s met with some dismay about what this potentially is signalling,\u201d he told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand the reasons that have been put to us which are to do with the feeling that the authorities will not be able to adequately protect our fans who would be attending the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I do think this is an extremely important moment because of what it signifies. I don\u2019t use this term lightly but people ask \u2018what does antisemitism look like?\u2019, and it\u2019s often manifested as part of a process, in other words small events leading up to something that\u2019s more sinister.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I do find it somewhat difficult to understand why this has come to pass in the sense that our fans cannot be secure in attending this match.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the club\u2019s official travelling party, he said: \u201cThere is a delegation coming of management, of players, and all the supporting staff, are we saying that they will be secure also or that there are issues with them?\u201d<\/p>\n
European football governing body UEFA has also had its say, promoting the principle of inclusivity for away supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cUEFA wants fans to be able to travel and support their team in a safe, secure and welcoming environment, and encourages both teams and the competent authorities to agree on the implementation of appropriate measures necessary to allow this to happen,\u201d a statement read.<\/p>\n
Announcing the news, the club said it would continue to monitor the situation.<\/p>\n
Villa said: \u201cThe club are in continuous dialogue with Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local authorities throughout this ongoing process, with the safety of supporters attending the match and the safety of local residents at the forefront of any decision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Safety Advisory Group (SAG) has told Villa that travelling fans will not be permitted to attend the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,23,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-127734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latest-news-ticker","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}