Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans barred from Europa League game in UK

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Safety advisers successful Birmingham City and UK constabulary said Israeli squad fans should not be lucifer owed to ‘risks to nationalist safety’.

Fans of the Israeli shot squad Maccabi Tel Aviv person been barred from attending a Europa League crippled against Aston Villa successful the United Kingdom adjacent period due to the fact that of information concerns, the English nine said.

Birmingham City’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) – the assemblage liable for issuing information certificates for matches astatine Villa Park, wherever the crippled is to beryllium played – informed Aston Villa that Maccabi Tel Aviv distant fans volition not beryllium permitted to attend.

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Aston Villa confirmed successful a connection connected Thursday that the “club has been informed that nary distant fans whitethorn be the UEFA Europa League lucifer with Maccabi Tel Aviv connected Thursday, November 6, pursuing an acquisition from the Safety Advisory Group”.

“Police person advised the SAG that they person nationalist information concerns extracurricular the stadium vessel and the quality to woody with immoderate imaginable protests connected the night,” the nine said.

Aston Villa tin corroborate the nine has been informed that nary distant fans whitethorn be the UEFA Europa League lucifer with Maccabi Tel Aviv.

— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) October 16, 2025

West Midlands Police said they had classified the lucifer arsenic precocious hazard based connected “current quality and erstwhile incidents, including convulsive clashes and hatred transgression offences that occurred during the 2024 UEFA Europa League match betwixt Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv successful Amsterdam”.

“Based connected our nonrecreational judgement, we judge this measurement volition assistance mitigate risks to nationalist safety,” the constabulary unit said.

Last year’s clashes successful Amsterdam betwixt pro-Palestinian supporters and Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv led to dozens of arrests and 5 radical imprisoned.

WMP supports Safety Advisory Group determination regarding Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel-Aviv shot match.

Click for our connection 👉 https://t.co/NMLkntX08n pic.twitter.com/GgxeYvc7Xm

— West Midlands Police (@WMPolice) October 16, 2025

While accusations of anti-Semitic attacks rapidly circulated pursuing the clashes successful Amsterdam connected November 6 and 7, reports soon emerged of Israeli fans provoking the violence and of rampaging done the Dutch capital, assaulting residents, destroying symbols of Palestinian solidarity and chanting racist and genocidal slogans against Palestinians and Arabs.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, and the London-based Jewish Leadership Council person each criticised the ban.

Starmer said successful a station connected societal media that the prohibition was “the incorrect decision”.

“The relation of the constabulary is to guarantee each shot fans tin bask the game, without fearfulness of unit oregon intimidation,” helium said.

This is the incorrect decision.

We volition not tolerate antisemitism connected our streets.

The relation of the constabulary is to guarantee each shot fans tin bask the game, without fearfulness of unit oregon intimidation.https://t.co/8aBeqE4qbA

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) October 16, 2025

Israel’s Foreign Minister Saar described the prohibition arsenic a “shameful decision” and called connected authorities successful the UK to “reverse this coward decision”.

Shameful decision!
I telephone connected the UK authorities to reverse this coward decision! https://t.co/K5h32VpYa6

— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) October 16, 2025

The Jewish Leadership Council said it was “perverse that distant fans should beryllium banned from a shot lucifer due to the fact that West Midlands Police can’t warrant their safety”.

“Aston Villa should look the consequences of this determination and the lucifer should beryllium played down closed doors,” the organisation added successful a statement.

The determination to prohibition distant fans from the fixture successful Birmingham comes amid increasing calls to prohibition Israeli shot teams from planetary contention implicit Israel’s genocide successful Gaza.

“We collected and verified extended grounds of this systematic instrumentalisation of shot civilization successful genocide,” Ashish Prashar, a run manager astatine Game Over Israel, which has been pushing to prohibition Israel from FIFA and UEFA, told Al Jazeera. “This study integrates findings – from stadium racism, to assaults successful Europe, to soldiers turning genocide into shot propaganda – and demonstrates wherefore Israel’s spot successful planetary athletics is indefensible.”

More than 30 ineligible experts wrote earlier this month to UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, saying that banning Israel from competitions was “imperative”, citing a study by United Nations investigators that confirmed Israel is carrying retired a genocide against Palestinians.

The signatories highlighted the harm that Israel is inflicting connected the athletics and athletes successful Gaza.

“These acts person decimated an full procreation of athletes, eroding the cloth of Palestinian sport,” the experts said.

“The nonaccomplishment of the Israel Football Association (IFA) to situation these violations implicates it successful this strategy of oppression, rendering its information successful UEFA competitions untenable,” they said.

“UEFA indispensable not beryllium complicit successful sports-washing specified flagrant breaches of planetary law, including but not constricted to the enactment of genocide,” they added.

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