Protests took place in Birmingham on Thursday, November 6 as local football club Aston Villa faced Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv. The match took place after authorities banned visiting supporters over security concerns. Palestine solidarity groups and anti-racist organizations called for the match to be fully canceled, citing the violent record of Maccabi supporters and the club’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Allowing football clubs from a state committing genocide and implementing apartheid to compete in international competitions normalizes its atrocities, and sends the signal that there are no consequences for them,” the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) stated ahead of the match. The organization collected approximately 25,000 signatures demanding the game’s cancellation and, after that did not happen, together with other groups mobilized more than 1,000 protesters outside the stadium. Zionist demonstrators also gathered in Birmingham, though independent media estimated their number at only around 60.
Security authorities responsible for the West Midlands area defended the decision to bar traveling supporters, explaining that it was based on safety concerns resulting from Maccabi fans’ record of violence during away games. The police also held consultations with other European cities that had hosted the club in recent months and experienced widespread destruction and racist assaults.
Despite such assessments, several figures from the Labour Party criticized the police, claiming the ban was fueled by rising antisemitism in Britain. “The British government has intervened to push for these fans to be allowed at the match, even outrageously suggesting that preventing these fans, with a proven track record of racism, from attending would be a capitulation to antisemitism,” the PSC commented.
Read more: Starmer pushes for Maccabi Tel Aviv fans to attend match despite violent, racist record
Palestine solidarity activists continue to campaign for the expulsion of Israeli representatives from international sporting events, echoing the sporting boycott once imposed on apartheid South Africa. “Israel must be removed from all international sporting bodies, including FIFA and UEFA,” journalist Roger McKenzie said ahead of the game. “There must be no matches these teams are allowed to play,” he added, pointing to their deep involvement in Israel’s system of apartheid, occupation, and genocide.
“If no action is taken to stop Israel’s colonial expansion, there will soon be more IFA [Israel Football Association] clubs in illegal settlements in the West Bank because that many more Palestinian communities will have been ethnically cleansed,” the PSC concluded.
