{"id":310890,"date":"2025-10-17T14:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/310890\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T14:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:12:09","slug":"birmingham-police-face-pressure-to-lift-ban-on-maccabi-tel-aviv-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/310890\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham police face pressure to lift ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Pressure mounted Friday on police authorities in the English city of Birmingham to reverse a ban<\/a> on Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans attending a Europa League game at Aston Villa next month over security concerns, a decision that drew widespread condemnation.<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, the government was seeking to resolve the row, which comes at a time of heightened worries about antisemitism in Britain following a deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue<\/a> earlier this month and calls from Palestinians and their supporters for a sports boycott of Israel over its conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the police recommendation to bar the visiting team\u2019s fans from the Nov. 6 game was \u201cthe wrong decision\u201d<\/a> and that \u201cthe role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starmer spokesman Geraint Ellis said Friday that \u201cthe prime minister has been angered by the decision\u201d and the government was working urgently to overturn it.<\/p>\n

Simon Foster, the elected official in Birmingham responsible for overseeing the local police force and holding it to account, also urged an \u201cimmediate review,\u201d while local mayor Richard Parker called on authorities to find \u201ca workable solution\u201d that may involve the government covering some policing costs.<\/p>\n

Security worries over game<\/p>\n

Premier League team Aston Villa said Thursday that police had informed the club that \u201cthey have public safety concerns outside the stadium bowl and the ability to deal with any potential protests on the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

West Midlands Police said it had deemed the match to be high risk \u201cbased on current intelligence and previous incidents,\u201d including violence and hate crimes that took place when Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax in Amsterdam last season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fan bans are not unheard of in European soccer, but they are a rarity and typically based on a history of violence between fans of rival clubs. There is no history of violence between Aston Villa and Maccabi fans.<\/p>\n

However, Maccabi fans have been increasingly in the spotlight over the past year or so, partly linked to the war in Gaza. Most notably, Maccabi fans clashed violently with city residents in Amsterdam last season when the team visited for a Europa League game against Ajax. <\/p>\n

Dozens were arrested and five people were treated in hospital following the night of violence<\/a> which was condemned as antisemitic by authorities and which also saw some supporters of the Israeli team chanting anti-Arab slogans as they headed to the stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Maccabi fan base has an egregious track record of racist violence that led them to being banned from the city of Amsterdam,\u201d said Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.<\/p>\n

In Italy this week there was a heavy police presence, including snipers on the roof<\/a> of the stadium, for a World Cup qualifier between Italian and Israeli national teams after authorities placed the game in the highest risk category. Around 10,000 people attended a pro-Palestinian march earlier in the day. Later around 50 people \u2014 with their faces covered \u2014 clashed with police, who used water cannons and tear gas to try to disperse them.<\/p>\n

The game at Villa Park will be Maccabi\u2019s first away match in the Europa League, European soccer\u2019s second-tier competition, since pro-Palestinian protests took place at the stadium in Thessaloniki, Greece, when the club played PAOK<\/a> on Sept. 24. About 120 Maccabi fans traveled to Greece for that game and were held behind a police cordon before entering the venue.<\/p>\n

European soccer\u2019s governing body UEFA was weighing a vote<\/a> to suspend Israeli teams from its competitions before that was overtaken this month<\/a> by the ceasefire in Gaza<\/a>. Though Israel isn\u2019t in Europe, its national team and its clubs play in UEFA competitions, as many Muslim nations in the Middle East and Asia boycott the country.<\/p>\n

UEFA says fans should be able to attend<\/p>\n

Following Thursday\u2019s ban announcement, UEFA urged British authorities to ensure the Israeli team\u2019s fans could go to the match, while Football Supporters Europe, the governing body\u2019s recognized advisory and liaison group, said it is opposed to blanket bans for away fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch away travel ban would be a first in England, and it\u2019s extremely worrying to see the local police take that route when evidence shows that it doesn\u2019t solve anything,\u201d it said in a statement. \u201cTo the contrary, it creates additional risk by not offering a controlled and secured environment inside the stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maccabi Tel Aviv chief executive Jack Angelides, expressed \u201cdismay about what this potentially is signalling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 \u2026 in other words small events leading up to something that\u2019s more sinister,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Antisemitic incidents in the U.K. have hit record levels following Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel\u2019s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, according to Community Security Trust, a charity that provides advice and protection for British Jews. Earlier this month, a synagogue was targeted<\/a> in a car and knife attack that left two congregants dead. <\/p>\n

Emily Damari, a British Israeli dual national who was held captive by Hamas for more than a year before being released in January, and who supports Maccabi as well as English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur, condemned the ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is a way of bringing people together irrespective of their faith, color or religion, and this disgusting decision does the exact opposite,\u201d she said. \u201cShame on you. I hope you come to your senses and reconsider.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

James Robson in London and Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Pressure mounted Friday on police authorities in the English city of Birmingham to reverse a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":310891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[97,49665,87654,157005,29032,67645,57,157004,4527,373,157006,17723,50,365,157003,157007,221,62,376,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-310890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","9":"tag-amsterdam","10":"tag-aston-villa-fc","11":"tag-ben-jamal","12":"tag-birmingham","13":"tag-emily-damari","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-geraint-ellis","16":"tag-hamas","17":"tag-israel-hamas-war","18":"tag-jack-angelides","19":"tag-keir-starmer","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-religion","22":"tag-richard-parker","23":"tag-simon-foster","24":"tag-soccer","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-united-kingdom","27":"tag-world","28":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115389920913851004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}