Anti-discrimination network ‘reluctant to question’ Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban

They should ban the team as well😡

It's ridiculous that an Israeli team is allowed to play international sport in the first place. Why the double standards of a ban on Russia but not Israel. Imagine if South African Rugby teams were continually allowed to compete in the UK,if that was the case apartheid would have never ended in South Africa. Already Zionists are playing their anti semitism card over this and no doubt Sir Kid Starver will pander to the Zionist lobby within the Labour Party.

The UK is unsafe for Jewish people, football fans and football players. It is a sad thing to say, but, with antisemitism so rife, the game should be moved to another country. I genuinely fear for the lives of the fans but also for the players - a Munich 72 scenario is highly possible in the current climate.

Yet again Starmer chooses to ignore the real issues that concern the vast majority of the people of the UK. By diving feet first into this issue he seeks to divert attention from his parties failing policies & the financial situation facing the ordinary man & woman in the street, ie, creeping inflation, energy bills etc. The Tories certainly taught him well.

So our PM is more concerned about a bunch of racist Israeli football fans being allowed to attend a football match than the violence and racism that they would bring towards his own countrymen. Says all you need to know about him. And as for claiming that the ban is antisemitic...yawn. It doesn't matter where fans are from or what religion they follow. If they can't behave themselves then they don't deserve to attend.

"A network which reports discriminatory incidents to UEFA says it is “reluctant to question” the decision to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from next month’s Europa League match away to Aston Villa, claiming supporters of the Israeli club are “well known for their racism"......so are supporters of glasgow rangers and chelsea. So will this network then also support a ban on their supporters?

No no, the Israeli fans cannot possibly be racist, that's Anti-Semitic. They're victims (see Kemi whatshername, Kier Starmer and Ed Davey). They're being wrongly excluded because they might be subjected to racism, they're not racists. All facepalming aside, thanks, I hadn't actually heard anywhere else the information provided in the article above and has certainly made me re-evaluate my opinion. I had been of the opinion that, yes it was technically wrong but if they're coming to an area where they're definitely gonna be subject to attacks and it'd be a drain on the police resources... then it was unfortunate. I hadn't even considered that the Israeli fans might be the perpetrators.

I think some of the comments here show exactly why it isn't safe for Jewish football fans from the UK, let alone those from another country.

PM should butt out and leave policing to the police. Local fire and ambulance and police and council would have come to this decision and we don't know what intel the police have, it must be quite bad for this. Police and emergency services due diligence happens at every match, and don't forget England fans were banned for a number of years. This team has ultra's. Villa is in a housing estate. The question should be what has Netanyahu and Trump on our PM.

I'm always a tad uneasy when politicians - many of whom these days are hardly a creditable and credible bunch - 'horn in' on what must be essentially policing decisions on the force's capacity, as they judge it in a particular situation, to maintain order and ensure public safety. I hear that this 'safety advisory group' actually has no power to make the decision which was reached: the clue's in the name, and its function is to be solely 'advisory'. But the powers-that-be in Birmingham - police and local authority - presumably took the advice, and the rationale given in support of it, as credible. Doubtless they will have also factored in the degree to which the effectiveness of the police has been diminished by all the austerity cuts in their funding and staffing to which they have been subjected in the last fifteen years. The police aren't there to make judgements based on political considerations. That's not to say that they might not sometimes be tempted to do so, but it seems unreasonable to assume that they've done that in this instance unless evidence can be presented to support the imputation.