Maccabi Tel Aviv vs Aston Villa – What have we learned?
We are pleased to share a video recording of a really informative and probing webinar, organised at short notice to mull over the lessons of the Maccabi Tel Aviv saga. This blog editor urges you to watch it!
Organised and chaired by Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, the webinar brought together a rich panel of football experts, football fans and voices from communities in Birmingham to reflect on events of the past fortnight and their historical context.
It was organised against the background of our growing alarm and outrage at events of the past two years. In Gaza, the Israeli state has committed its atrocities, war crimes and genocide in the name of Jews worldwide. Its anti-Palestinian racism has become part of a generalised racist rhetoric normalised across the political spectrum in Britain and elsewhere. Attacks on asylum seekers, migrants, Muslims and more are on the rise, as indeed is antisemitism.
In Britain recently we have seen the assault in September of a Sikh woman in her 20s in Oldbury, in the West Midlands, described as racially aggravated rape, which sparked protests and vigils; an arson attack on Peacehaven mosque “with intent to endanger life”; frequent attacks on asylum hotels; and, of course, the deadly attack on a synagogue in Heaton Park, Manchester.
Then along came the visit of Maccabi Tel Aviv to play against Aston Villa in the Europa League. In anticipation of trouble, vising fans were banned – and all hell broke loose.
The match on November 6 had been the focus of a major political row. Keir Starmer and other government ministers rushed in with their bovver boots to condemn the ban on supporters of the Israeli team as “antisemitic.” Never mind that it was initiated by West Midlands police because of security concerns.
Birmingham residents and political representatives were demonised as antisemitic and subjected to Islamophobic attacks. Communal tensions were stoked by far-right advocates for Israel threatening to confront local people protesting in support of Palestine and against the Israeli team’s presence in their city.
In the end the event took place relatively peacefully with over 700 police drafted in from over 20 different police forces. A dignified local community demonstration of over fifteen hundred exercised their right to protest and speak out on behalf of a beleaguered community. A small demonstration of pro-Israel supporters also made their voices heard.
Police confirmed a total of 10 arrests for a variety of offences in the area, including racially aggravated abuse towards both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups.
This is the context in which the webinar “Maccabi Tel Aviv vs Aston Villa – What have we learned?” took place.
There was general agreement that Israel is in outrageous breach of FIFA and UEFA rules and the case for its suspension from international football is crystal clear. So too was the belief that racists should not allowed to attend football matches but serious doubt was raised as to whether blanket bans on supporters is the best way to deal with problem.
RK
Contributors to the webinar
The following people contributed to the webinar, in the order listed. The timing of their talks is added after their biogs should you wish to locate specific contributions.
David Goldblatt is writer, journalist and academic. His books include The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football (2006), The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football (2014), and, this year, Injury Time: Football in a State of Emergency.
Kevin Miles is the chief executive of the Football Supporters’ Association. He has wide experience of football policing domestically and internationally, and has served as an expert trainer to the Pan-European Football Policing Training programme run by the European Police College. A founder member and former chairman of the anti-racism education charity Show Racism the Red Card, Kevin is currently an independent trustee of Kick It Out, and was last year awarded an OBE for services to association football.
Salma Yaqoob is a psychotherapist, a former elected Birmingham City Councillor and a patron of the Stop the War Coalition.
Nicholas McGeehan is a founding co-director of FairSquare, based in France. He is a leading advocate on migrant workers’ rights and sport and leads the organisation’s work on sports governance. He was a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch for five years, where he conducted research and advocacy on a wide range of rights issues, including abuses linked to the Qatar 2022 World Cup. He has a PhD in the international law on slavery, forced labour and human trafficking.
David Hughes, Socialist and longstanding member of UNISON the public service union, employed by Birmingham City council, but in no way representing them on this webinar! He supports the work of Blues4all a group dedicated to ensure football is an inclusive space for all the communities of Birmingham.
Naeem Malik is chair of the West Midlands Palestine Solidarity Campaign and has been active in the anti-racist, anti-colonial and trade union movement for many decades
Mark Perryman is the author of a number of books including Why The Olympics Aren’t Good For Us And How They Can Be and Ingerland: Travels With a Football Nation. He is a part-time research fellow in sport and leisure culture at the University of Brighton and co-founded the self-styled “sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction”, aka Philosophy Football
Zarah Sultana, is the independent MP for Coventry South, and Co founder of Your Party. She was first elected in 2019. Born in Lozells, Birmingham in 1993 a stone’s throw from Villa Park, A prominent left-wing voice, she campaigns on inequality, climate justice, and Palestinian liberation, and helped found a new socialist movement in 2025.
In the event, Zarah Sultana was not able to attend and the following statement was read out on her behalf:
When I raised concerns about the Maccabi Tel Aviv match, it was never simply about football. It was about principle, about whether people in the UK are still free to oppose apartheid, to stand with Palestinians, and to call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions without being vilified.
The local Safety Advisory Group and West Midlands Police had judged the match to be high risk. Their advice was that allowing away supporters to attend could threaten public safety. Yet ministers ignored that advice and intervened for political reasons, insisting that restricting fans was “wrong.” That intervention wasn’t about fairness; it was about politics, about shielding an apartheid, genocidal state from criticism.
Apartheid, Israeli militarism and Maccabi Tel-Aviv are inextricably linked. Many of these fans have served in the IDF and rather than be welcomed into our stadiums, they should be arrested for war crimes.
By overruling local authorities, the government sent a message: that shielding apartheid mattered more than the safety of our communities. And while Gaza was still being bombed and starved, while hospitals, schools, and refugee camps were reduced to rubble, this Labour government chose to make a show of support for the Israeli state instead of standing with its victims.
Let me be absolutely clear: antisemitism is a vile form of racism and must always be opposed. But anti-Zionism, opposition to a political ideology that upholds occupation and apartheid, is not antisemitism. Criticising the Israeli government and demanding an end to its oppression of Palestinians is a moral duty.
Yet, rather than engage with that truth, some in Parliament chose to distort it. They misrepresented what I and others said and tried to smear us for standing up for Palestinian rights. It was a shameful attempt to silence dissent, part of a wider campaign to make solidarity with Palestine unspeakable.
Britain should not be arming or legitimising Israel’s occupation. It should be supporting international law, demanding accountability for war crimes, and standing with those who fight for freedom and equality. And many ministers are complicit and should be held to account for their crimes.
I have and always will stand with the Palestinian people.
Thank you.
As a Christian I felt compelled to protest at what looked like an imposed Jewish no go area at this game.When I got a small israeli flag out I was subjected to a torrent of abuse and told to f off ,it was only a reporter from Dailly Telegraph who countered a false accusation that I supposedly waved it in two young asians faces who drove passed in a car.
Lets just ask the question shall we?
Why was Russia banned from all competitions globally and Israel isn’t?
Israel has continued to carry out what we now have confirmed as genocide and are still ehtnically cleansing the west bank. Anyone peacefully protesting against a genocidal state being allowed to play sport on an international stage is doing the right thing.
Thank you for this debate; interesting multiple points of view.
I find Mark Watson’s written comment that as a Christian he felt the need to wave an Israeli flag astonishing. It is a continual shame to me that Christians refuse to see and support the indigenous Christians in Palestine who are under threat by Israel, and frequently attacked by settlers and Israelis, and unable to worship due to the barriers and checkpoints that prohibit freedom of movement and worship among Palestinians; which many Jews across the world condemn. This is part of the rhetoric against the wide variety of Jewish perspectives that Zionists like Kier Starmer and Israel purport; that the only Jewish defender is Israel, and that Israel stands for all Jews. I have written to complain to the Government about Starmer’s antisemitism before, as he expelled Jewish Labour supporters for their support of Palestine when he culled the party; and this is anti-semitic in disallowing the valid point of view of all Jewish people to have a varied point of view. Sadly Mark Watson follows the lies that are put out that all Jews support Israel. In this fallacy he did not understand the whole point of the debate around the Maccabis. Perhaps read more about the region, especially what is happening to Christians across the West Bank and Jerusalem under the current Israeli leadership and racist settlers.
All faiths and none need to stand by non violence and international law. There is no excuse to support violence; nor racism of any kind.
Israel needs to be held accountable for its behaviour as Russia and other nations are, and banned from international competitions due to its own behaviour, especially when the fans chant “there are no schools in Gaza because there are no children”.
That was a really useful and interesting discussion – thanks for organising it. I liked especially the openness and lack of dogmatism of the participant speakers and the way a range of quite different ‘takes’ on the issues were showcased.
Mark Watson, for some reason, doesn’t understand what has been going on in Gaza where about 1,000 Christian’s have lived in peace with Muslims for literally hundreds of years. Together they have experienced the horror of – especially the last two years, together they have lost homes and places of worship, including the destruction of 3rd century churches as well as access to Bethlehem. It is not about religion.