LONDON: Police in the UK are investigating violence at a football match in Israel between fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv and local rivals Hapoel, The Guardian reported.
Maccabi supporters were recently banned by police from attending a match in the English city of Birmingham in November to watch their team play Aston Villa in the Europa League, after safety fears were raised by members of the local community.
Those fears stemmed from fan violence in Amsterdam in 2024, when Maccabi traveled to play Ajax, leading to numerous injuries and more than 60 arrests.
The UK’s football policing unit will now assess whether Maccabi fans were to blame for violence at the match with Hapoel, which led to the game being abandoned after police were hit with “smoke grenades and pyrotechnic devices” thrown at the pitch.
West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council’s Safety Advisory Group made the decision last week not to allow Maccabi fans to attend.
On Monday Ayoub Khan, the MP for Perry Barr in Birmingham, denied that antisemitism was behind local people demanding Maccabi fans not be allowed to attend the match.
He told the House of Commons: “I know the reality on the ground and I know that there has been a deliberate, disingenuous move by many to make this a matter of banning Jews — to conflate matters of policing with those of religion.
“Those who are not welcome in Aston are hooligans that have a long history of violence and vile racism. Chants like ‘F the Arabs,’ ‘we will rape their daughters,’ that ‘there are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left in Gaza’ — it’s these hooligans that are not welcome.”
He asked Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy: “How many millions of British taxpayers’ money is her government offering to overturn the respective expert judgment of the West Midlands Police and the safety group?”
