Late on 16 October, West Midlands Police issued a statement reporting that Maccabi Tel Aviv (MTA) fans would not be allowed to attend an upcoming game against Aston Villa. They cited safety concerns, particularly after the recent riots in Amsterdam. During that particular incident MTA fans tore down Palestine flags, and rampaged through streets shouting “gas Gaza” and “kill the Arabs”. In retaliation, locals fought MTA fans on the streets of Amsterdam. MTA fans were also subject to antisemitic attacks.
We are committed to delivering fair and impartial policing, while balancing the public’s right to protest with our duty to ensure public safety.
Following a thorough assessment, we have classified the upcoming Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel-Aviv fixture as high risk.[…]
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.
Based on our professional judgement, we believe this measure will help mitigate risks to public safety.
The decision was made by Birmingham City Council, which chose not to issue a safety certificate for the match. However, West Midlands Police stated that they support the decision to prevent away supporters from attending. Aston Villa also confirmed the statement.
Amsterdam riots
The ‘previous incidents’ that the West Midlands police referred to include the riot in Amsterdam earlier this month. On 7 November, Ajax played Mac Tel Aviv in the Dutch city.
There has been widespread hostility towards Israel’s participation in international sport due to the genocide it’s currently carrying out against Palestine. However, the city’s authorities were reportedly reassured by the fact that Ajax has historically identified as a Jewish team. Nevertheless, the night descended into violent clashes between supporters, pro-Palestinian protesters, taxi drivers, and roving bands of thugs.
The day before the match, Maccabi fans attacked a taxi and a squat displaying Palestinian flags, threatening to kill the people inside. On the day itself, as mentioned earlier, footage shows Mac supporters tearing down Palestinian flags and chanting slogans including “gas Gaza”, “kill the arabs”, and “there are no schools in Gaza, because all the children are dead”.
In the Johan Cruyff Arena, Tel Aviv supporters ignored a moment of silence for flood victims in Spain. Outside the stadium, one local filmed a crowd of MTA fans attacking locals in Amsterdam. Taxi drivers then attacked MTA fans, seeking revenge for the previous day. Footage also appears to show a car running over Israeli fans after mounting the curb.
There was some evidence of co-ordination for the violence – with one chat group reportedly referring to it as a “jew hunt”. British fans present during the violence also reported that “they were looking for Jews not just Israelis.” However, Amsterdam police reported that a distinction was made between Israeli fans and Jewish people in general.
‘The wrong decision’
Regarding the decision to prevent Tel Aviv supporters from attending the Aston Villa game, independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr Ayoub Khan stated that:
From the moment that the match was announced, it was clear that there were latent safety risks that even our capable security and police authorities would not be able to fully manage.
However, other politicians were much less welcoming of the decision. Starmer said:
This is the wrong decision. 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.
Likewise, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch posted that Starmer should:
guarantee that Jewish fans can walk into any football stadium in this country.
If not, it sends a horrendous and shameful message: there are parts of Britain where Jews simply cannot go.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, stated that:
You don’t tackle antisemitism by banning its victims. This decision must be reversed.
Now, it appears that the government is actively intervening to bring in the Tel Aviv supporters. At 12:27 today, BBC Newsreported that a Downing Street spokesperson stated:
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is meeting officials to discuss what more can be done to try and find a way through to resolve this, and what more can be done to allow fans to attend the game safely.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed, spoke to the local council this morning, and the Home Office is urgently working to support police to try and find a way through this.
The same old story
Like much of the British media in the wake of the Amsterdam riots, UK party leaders chose to focus solely on the violence against Tel Aviv fans, characterising it as wholly antisemitic. They chose to omit mention of the genocidal rhetoric, violence, and property damage carried out by the Maccabi supporters.
This is a microcosm of the way that UK MPs and the mainstream media has portrayed Israel and its citizens in general. They treat violence against Palestinians and their allies as unimportant and ignored. Meanwhile, all opposition to Israel is lumped together with vile antisemitism.
The Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture is high risk. The West Midlands police force is perfectly correct in its assessment there. The Tel Aviv fans have shown that they are perfectly happy perpetrating violence against the cities around them. The fact that Starmer and his fellow party leaders are determined to risk a riot just to show their support for Israel is nothing short of the most craven cowardice.
This is a direct attempt to stoke race riots (or more accurately fascist attacks on local communities who, when they defend themselves, will be framed as 'doing pogroms' like was arranged by Israeli intelligence in Amsterdam) by the state.
For years and years the British government and establishment has not just been tacitly encouraging but sometimes openly requesting the British fash firms to take to the streets to enact violence on their political enemies and local communities that pose an issue for them. Previous attempts have largely ended up in pissed and coked up idiots getting lost in London, looting local Greggs, and fighting the police not protesters.
After those embarrassments, along with an increasingly losing arguement for Israel, having to drop multiple high profile cases against pro-Palestine musicians and critics, and now failing to stop the appeal in regard to the proscription of Palestine Action, they're rallying around this as a flashpoint of violence they can outsource to the Israeli state directly (while the US/Israel pour funding & organisational capacity into our far right to get them ready for the a post-Labour government). This is also after their best attempts to stoke violence and community divisions around the knife attack last, month where police killed more victims that the lone attacker did, largely fell flat outside of the press.
They are absolutely desperate for the next, thinnest legal/policy excuse they can point to in order to push their fascist repression of general protest, anti-Israel, and anti-fascist views even further than they already have. Keir Stürmer has now said that the "cumulative effect" of pro-Palestine protests and sayings can be considered antisemetic and as hate and a danger to British Jews even if there is no actual offending language or action within it just due to "repetition". They are desperate to engineer a situation like Amsterdam - going so far as to import foreign intelligence/military personal & fascist football hooligans to violently attack their own citizens - in order to justify ongoing and increasingly extra-legal crackdowns on the left, on protesters, on Muslim communities, and soon on what will be escalating demands for employment and financial survival from an increasingly poor and desperate population as they destroy the country (as stated explicitly in their yearly national security review for the first time ever this year).
The absurdity of mainstream MPs publicly calling ordinary, routine banning orders on violent football fans as being akin to the Holocaust, whilst deliberately conflating all Jewish people with a football-based violent organised crime, is of course ludicrous, dangerous, antisemetic and beggars belief.
But it's not naive or stupid as I've seen a lot of people on the left assert in the last 48hrs or so. It's deliberate, targeted, and orchestrated. Anyone who has been paying attention for the last few years (to Israel, to the events in Amsterdam, to the use of the far right here etc) should be well aware of that even without every mainstream MP and pundit all going full-hog with the same pre-prepared talking points at the exact same time.
This is a strategy of tension. This is a play in the explicitly fascist takeover of Britain.
14
SickSemper [she/her, they/them] - 2mon
Not enough fascists marching in britain, now they need to import them?
12
glimmer_twin [he/him] - 2mon
Import them? Half of them are probably already from London
2
plinky [he/him] - 2mon
while one does understand amerika position and german cowardice, british obsequiousness is sort of baffling
5
10TH_OF_SEPTEMBER_CALL [any, any] - 2mon
this could be good. Time for the brits to show their famous knife crime skillz. Maybe they can sell them to those "pakistani grooming gangs" lmao
fr i bet every thugs in the country will be on the street.
4
plinky [he/him] - 2mon
their knife skillz guys are rightwingers, unfortunately. probably would join with mossad tonny to protect them, if they would be let in, to fight anti-semitism. hopefully someone
thelastaxolotl in europe
Genocide supporting Labour government work to overturn ban of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2025/10/17/maccabi-tel-aviv-fans/cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/84775
This is a direct attempt to stoke race riots (or more accurately fascist attacks on local communities who, when they defend themselves, will be framed as 'doing pogroms' like was arranged by Israeli intelligence in Amsterdam) by the state.
For years and years the British government and establishment has not just been tacitly encouraging but sometimes openly requesting the British fash firms to take to the streets to enact violence on their political enemies and local communities that pose an issue for them. Previous attempts have largely ended up in pissed and coked up idiots getting lost in London, looting local Greggs, and fighting the police not protesters.
After those embarrassments, along with an increasingly losing arguement for Israel, having to drop multiple high profile cases against pro-Palestine musicians and critics, and now failing to stop the appeal in regard to the proscription of Palestine Action, they're rallying around this as a flashpoint of violence they can outsource to the Israeli state directly (while the US/Israel pour funding & organisational capacity into our far right to get them ready for the a post-Labour government). This is also after their best attempts to stoke violence and community divisions around the knife attack last, month where police killed more victims that the lone attacker did, largely fell flat outside of the press.
They are absolutely desperate for the next, thinnest legal/policy excuse they can point to in order to push their fascist repression of general protest, anti-Israel, and anti-fascist views even further than they already have. Keir Stürmer has now said that the "cumulative effect" of pro-Palestine protests and sayings can be considered antisemetic and as hate and a danger to British Jews even if there is no actual offending language or action within it just due to "repetition". They are desperate to engineer a situation like Amsterdam - going so far as to import foreign intelligence/military personal & fascist football hooligans to violently attack their own citizens - in order to justify ongoing and increasingly extra-legal crackdowns on the left, on protesters, on Muslim communities, and soon on what will be escalating demands for employment and financial survival from an increasingly poor and desperate population as they destroy the country (as stated explicitly in their yearly national security review for the first time ever this year).
The absurdity of mainstream MPs publicly calling ordinary, routine banning orders on violent football fans as being akin to the Holocaust, whilst deliberately conflating all Jewish people with a football-based violent organised crime, is of course ludicrous, dangerous, antisemetic and beggars belief.
But it's not naive or stupid as I've seen a lot of people on the left assert in the last 48hrs or so. It's deliberate, targeted, and orchestrated. Anyone who has been paying attention for the last few years (to Israel, to the events in Amsterdam, to the use of the far right here etc) should be well aware of that even without every mainstream MP and pundit all going full-hog with the same pre-prepared talking points at the exact same time.
This is a strategy of tension. This is a play in the explicitly fascist takeover of Britain.
Not enough fascists marching in britain, now they need to import them?
Import them? Half of them are probably already from London
while one does understand amerika position and german cowardice, british obsequiousness is sort of baffling
this could be good. Time for the brits to show their famous knife crime skillz. Maybe they can sell them to those "pakistani grooming gangs" lmao
fr i bet every thugs in the country will be on the street.
their knife skillz guys are rightwingers, unfortunately. probably would join with mossad tonny to protect them, if they would be let in, to fight anti-semitism. hopefully someone
What about the hoodz ones?
AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa