Defender of banned football fans at Villa, what say you now?

Your point being? You're likening the two sets of fans? It's not the fans who were the problem in this situation as the West Mids Police commissioner is just being reminded.

Before the Russian invasion, the Ukraine fans were looked on as violent, right wing, racist, thugs. Often banned from grounds.

After the invasion, they were suddenly lovely people. 🙄

Yes, she wasn't all bad! It was horrible, and we'd literally wandered in by mistake.

That was nice of your boss x

I was kettled once at a protest I didn't intend to go to, or indeed knew was on, having nipped out for lunch with a colleague in Central London. It was terrifying. Luckily we had an understanding boss who sent us home when we got back and she saw how shaken up we were. There's just no justification for it, 99% of the time.

Came here to say the same.

Agree with both of you @NotAnotherScarf and @murasaki police can always seem to find the riot gear when it comes to footy fans.

Several of my friends have said the same (I moved away so rarely go now). For that kind of event, the MET, while also awful in many levels, aren't so bad.

You should try being a football fan going to matches policed by them:
Unprovoked attacks on fans by police.
Keeping fans kettled for long periods unnecessarily.
Unable to get parts of grounds open despite possible repeat of Hillsborough
Stopping vehicles some distance from grounds for no legal reasons and arresting fans on false charges... released after the game "no further action"

Just a few of my personal experiences.

It's very concerning how much sway some communities have in politics and policing, and by that, I mean a variety of communities. It shouldn't happen, and this is probably just the most high profile and egregious example, but it happens at lower levels too. Seems unstoppable though when vote grubbing is on the table.

Fair enough 👍

Can't disagree with that.

Some of the protestors are more than awful.

I still think my view of both being wrong was correct, just that clearly the police were more wrong (and incompetent at that). Akd, as I said, probably anti semitic. AI for a game that never happened? Oh dear. He does need sacking, pronto. Some of the fans are still awful though. Just awful in a different way and not as awful as the most senior policeman in the WM.

😆 🤣 😂

Oh dear. This hasn’t aged well, has it?

To be honest, WM police have been dubious for years on many fronts, (Birmingham 6, anyone?) so grilling them is a good thing. As I said, they probably were anti semitic and overly influenced, but the fans were still awful so I was pleased they weren't there. It was always going to be a clusterfuck and all the teams that didn't draw them will have been sighing in relief. We just got the short straw. It was never going to go well.

I may have missed it but I've not seen any recent mention here on MN of the ongoing Home Affairs Committee investigation into the decision making around this ban.

Some senior West Midlands Police Officers have been getting a bit of a grilling;

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/06/west-midlands-police-insist-decision-to-ban-maccabi-fans-not-politically-influenced

I think that's a fair assessment.

What say you now?

What sort of sentence is that?

And as for defending racism - well you'd know all about that. Totally poisonous.

I actually think it's possible to hold the position that the decision by the police was quite likely fueled by anti semitism AND that the fans are obnoxious and should have been banned some time ago.

Either way, it certainly wasn't Villa's fault, amd they got a lot of blame at the start for no reason. Actually the only people to have ripped up seats and caused bother there this season are Swiss. Who are now also banned.

Not only antisemitic but also a massive con job by police. Adding insult to injury by putting words into jews' mouths to justify their two tier policing. Yes, it IS two tier.

The ban by the UK authorities was anti-semitic. The current ban is not. One was because the police couldn’t protect Jews from being lynched. The other is the normal UEFA response to bad fan behaviour. Different reasons for the ban, different motivations. One anti-semitic, one fair.