The Thick of It
When the Prime Minister announced that West Midlands police were ‘wrong’ to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending the Aston Villa Europa Cup match on 6 November …adding, ‘We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets,’ he was not only wrong, he was, forgive me for saying so, thick. Not a slur I like to use, but there are moments…
When his Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lisa Nandy amplified the government’s case with the claim that the ban was unprecented, she was also wrong, and thick. And when Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson commented that the police and safety committee should explain the decision – as if it didn’t know, and as if it were not obvious – she was also wrong, and thick.
Everybody knew the reason, and in any case the government had been briefed that the ban was being considered and why – there was a serious risk that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans would do what they do: make trouble.
As they had done in Amsterdam and Athens in 2024 and generally on their home turf. And as they did on 19 October, the day after the Aston Villa ban had been announced: Tel Aviv police cancelled a match between rivals, Maccabi and Hapoel, after fans rioted before the game. Furthermore, they would be making racist trouble in one of Britain’s most ethnically-diverse cities.
There was nothing ‘uprecedented’ or anti-semitic about the decision.
Across Europe, fans and their teams have been banned in the 2020s – the notoriously toxic rivalry between between Glasgow’s Rangers and Celtic fans resulted in both clubs banning each others’ fans from away matches. Eintracht Frankfurt fans were banned from Aberdeen in 2023 and Naples in 2025. Between 2022 and 2025 UEFA banned Russian teams entirely.
It is an eerie echo of the bad old days in 1980s English football: In 1985 English fans were banned after the European cup final between Liverpool and Juventus in Heysel stadium in Brussels: Liverpool supporters rushed at Juventus fans, a wall collapsed, 39 people were killed and over 600 injured. And that was before kick-off which – bizarrely went ahead. Nothing was more important than the game.
Heysel was not unusual – like many, the stadium was not fit for purpose; the police captain in charge was later convicted of manslaughter. The crash provoked the overhaul of football stadiums across Europe and reform of crowd safety management.
The disaster brought shame to English football – the Union of European Football Associations banned English clubs for five years.
Football violence could no longer be blamed on ‘chavs’ or poor boys who knew no better. Riots were the sport of all sorts of men – men with Rolex watches, smart kit and enough money to travel. I’ve met men jailed for football hooliganism who were far from inarticulate – thick – thugs, they were eloquent about the pleasures of contempt and the productivity of violence.
Thinking about football violence got me writing with Adam Dawson, a dynastic Manchester United fan, about the culture of the ‘beautiful game’, how for many boys it is about making masculinity, it dominates the seasons of their days, the obsession intrudes upon almost everything, their social lives, their conversations, their presence at parties, weddings, meal times; days before a game, excessive visceral excitement floods their bodies.
Hatreds flourish – a friend, a woman who holds a Newcastle United season ticket, whose passions are cooking and football, admits that when she encounters people from the rival Sunderland, ‘I want to stab them’. It is as if a delectable curse shadows their passion.
Sir Keir Starmer’s family life has been dominated by his addiction to Arsenal, a club with a global fanbase. He says that being a ‘massive fan’ is ‘part of what I am.’ He says he loves the game and everything that goes with it, being with the guys and their sons, going to the pub, the excitement, the banter. Before he became Prime Minister, he says his staff ensured that the team’s fixtures are put into his diary, and he makes it to most of the home games.
There is, therefore, no excuse for his wilful ignorance – or indifference – about the risks Maccabi Tel Aviv fans could bring to Aston Villa. The Prime Minister’s criticism of West Midlands police and the city’s safety systems presumed anti-semitic bias and naïve or inexperienced management of menacing football fans.
They were none of these things. The Prime Minister’s indifference to the Chief Constable’s authority and operational autonomy, should worry everyone about both this government’s competence and its authoritarianism. Seemingly, No 10 didn’t bother to consult Tel Aviv’s own experience trying to manage some Maccabi supporters’ relentless, violent racism and sexism.
The government’s intervention had nothing to do with football, or the behaviour of these fans and everything to do with Starmer’s adhesion to Israel.
Sky News’ eyewitness account of the attacks on the night described their attacks on Arabs, and Palestinians in particular.
Richard Sanders’ Double Down News takedown of Sky TV’s censorship and distortion of its own reporter’s eyewitness narrative should have caused Downing Street to pause. Universally reported as anti-semitic attacks on Maccabi fans, Sky News had broadcast a very different narrative. Its journalist used footage shot by Amsterdam photographer Annet de Graaf that showed the opposite: Maccabi fans, some of them hooded, running around attacking Dutch citizens.
But de Graaf’s footage was used and abused by international news organisations – a classic bit of ‘totally dishonest’ obfuscation, says Sanders. De Graaf tried to engage international news organisations, to correct their version of events, but they wouldn’t.
De Graaf’s material had been used by Sky News journalist Alice Porter in her report. However, after broadcasting Porter’s story, Sky then traduced it by making Porter re-voice a re-edited version that ommitted the Maccabi fans’ culpability. Porter had been ‘clearly bullied‘ said Sanders.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans’ violence in Athens in 2024 had been widely broadcast. These incidents are all part of a pattern: fans’ racist chants ‘reach record levels’ in Israel’s 2024-2025 season – a 64 per cent increase, according to Kick It Out Israel.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are the worst, the Millwall of Israel – ‘No one likes us. We don’t care. We are Millwall.’ It took years of assiduous effort to reform the brand and the reputation.
Kick it Out Israel accuses the Israel Football Association of systemic failure to confront pervasive racism and sexism among supporters and lack of ‘meaningful enforcement ‘ ‘The club whose fans were recorded with the highest number of racist chants was Maccabi Tel Aviv.’
The Aston Villa ban should be a warning to the Israeli football authorities that their fans are not welcome not because they are Jews, but because in Birmingham, unlike Israel, their racist aggression will not be tolerated. And it should be a caution to No 10, too, that everyone, including the government, should share that responsibility.
As it happens, Aston Villa, West Midlands Police and the city’s emergency services are well used to trying to protect and prevent football fans’ menace and violence. Before the 2023 Warsaw Legia match against Aston Villa, for example, the notorious Polish fans’ ticket allocation was cut to 1000, on safety grounds.
Thousands of Polish fans arrived without tickets and enjoyed themselves not watching football but running rampage in the city. UEFA then fined the club £100,000 and Legia Warsaw fans were banned from five future away games. So much for Lisa Nandy’s ‘unprecedented’ allegation.
Ministers allowed themselves to be recruited to Starmer’s evident and ardent wish to defend Israel, the government dodged the opportunity to attack the racism, sexism and the cult of violence that still stick to football culture, and to address the larger context: how to make men participants in – rather than a threat to – pleasurable safe space.
Responses