David Vance SubstackRead More
The saga of Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa has taken a few turns since I first wrote about it here! You will be familiar with the original story namely that the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans had been banned by local authorities from attending a UEFA fixture at Villa Park on November 6th. This followed pressure from the local Muslim community but the subsequent public outcry embarrassed the Government. UK PM Starmer came out and said the Tel Aviv fans should be allowed to attend. Additional security resources were offered to the local Police to protect the Tel Aviv fans from an “unspecified” threat.
What’s happened now is that Maccabi Tel Aviv has officially announced that they will decline any ticket allocation, regardless of whether the ban is overturned.
“The wellbeing and safety of our fans is paramount and, from hard lessons learned, we have taken the decision to decline any allocation offered on behalf of away fans, and our decision should be understood in that context. We hope that circumstances will change and look forward to being able to play in Birmingham in a sporting environment in the near future”
But there was another twist and this involved Tommy Robinson! Tommy has been in Israel these past few days, as a guest of the Israeli Government, and when he was made aware of the initial ban, he posted this,
Initially there was no response from the Israeli club but then this…
Club sources and news reports state that his intervention changed the security calculus, as Maccabi feared both that Robinson’s supporters might attend and be mistaken for club fans, and that their own supporters could be wrongly associated with Robinson’s far-right politics. Maccabi Tel Aviv said that while initial safety threats came mostly from anti-Israel protestors, Robinson’s involvement created an additional risk of conflation with far-right groups, escalating concerns for their fan
So it seems that Maccabi Tel Aviv are more concerned about the support of Tommy Robinson than the threats of aggressive muslims in Birmingham. It certainly seems to equate the threat to their fans as being equal from both – and I think that is wrong. Robinson is well-intentioned towards Israel, so why lash out against him.
Regardless of how you may feel about Tommy Robinson, the local Muslim community has been buoyed by the Tel Aviv club banning its own fans. It now wants to see Maccabi Tel Aviv itself banned from Birmingham, all the players and staff. Here is a prominent voice in the muslim community…
See how it works? The Muslim community just does not want ANY Jews coming to Villa park. This egregious racism is indulged and is winning as Birmingham because Jew Free.
