Aston Villa will be hosting Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv in a Europa League match in Birmingham on Nov. 6. Last week, The Athletic reported that the West Midlands Police had requested that Maccabi fans be barred from the stadium and prevented from buying tickets to the match. The police, in consultation with Aston Villa and the city's Safety Advisory Group, requested that UEFA withhold approval of the standard allotment of tickets that would normally be made available to away fans, citing "a number of physical and safety factors."
The decision to keep Maccabi fans out of Birmingham is fully justified, and not out of step with how other European club competitions have been run in the past. It is not uncommon for away fans to be banned from matches based on previous instances of violent conduct, or the potential for future clashes between supporters. The city of Birmingham's concerns about what might happen if Maccabi fans descend on Villa Park are well-founded: Birmingham has a high Muslim population; in the run-up to a Europa League game against Ajax last November, racist and violent Maccabi fans wreaked havoc all over Amsterdam. Groups of Maccabi fans spent multiple days in Amsterdam, clashing with pro-Palestine protestors, attacking people, singing a whole catalogue of blatantly racist chants and songs, and getting beaten up by locals who got tired of their shit. It is good and sensible to want to keep fans who engage in that kind of behavior out of your city.
None of those facts were enough to stop UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer from calling Birmingham's decision an act of antisemitism. "This is the wrong decision," Starmer said in a statement on Twitter. "We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets. The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation." Another Labour MP, Lord Ian Austin, is now making noise about whether Villa Park is capable of being a host venue for the 2028 Euros.
UEFA is expected to follow the recommendations of local authorities when it comes to approving or denying ticket allocations for away fans, but given the organization's recent cowardly decision-making process in regards to the Israeli national team's inclusion in World Cup qualifiers, there's a possibility that the pressure being applied by Starmer and other UK politicians could result in UEFA seeking to reverse the ban.
If Starmer gets his wish, it's unlikely that he'll be forced to take the blame for any negative consequences that might follow. But the facts are pretty clear here: Starmer thinks that a group of fans who like to arrive in cities singing, "Fuck the Arabs, let the IDF win, fuck the Arabs," should be welcomed into Birmingham. Anything that happens after that is someone else's problem.
