Fans banned from match

[SunnySideDeepDown]

WTAF?!

https://news.sky.com/story/maccabi-tel-aviv-fans-will-not-be-allowed-to-attend-aston-villa-match-amid-safety-concerns-13451240

Maccabi Tel Aviv fans banned due to safety concerns AGAINST them?

Since when is it ok to victim blame and penalise people who have done nothing wrong? Surely the right course of action would be either to ban ALL fans of both sides or better police the event?

So are Jews not welcome at sports games now? Because some people are racist bullies?

I genuinely can’t believe this has been allowed. Where does it end? Can Jews no longer safely access society? What if the risk is high elsewhere, will they be banned then?

What do you think? AIBU to think this is discriminatory and a slippery slope?

It’s not about banning certain races, it’s about banning a football fan base. As I said, a decision that has been made completely uncontroversially previously within the last two years about a different fan base from Poland. You are willfully and determinedly ignoring this. In the meantime Villa have hosted countless other domestic and European football games without incident.

It is not uncommon for away fans to be banned from football games. In the same week that this game is due to be played Eintracht Frankfurt fans are being banned from attending their away game against Napoli due to previous disturbances on their travels. Is this racist or anti semitic? No, of course not, it’s a public safety decision made by the police.

I also don’t like how the phrase ‘people of Birmingham’ when used by other posters seems to be equating to ‘Muslims’, a bit rich when talking about racism.

Do we really want police shipped in from other areas and the army brought in when a well known violent football fan base can just be banned (as others have)? Where does the money or this come from? Football ffs.

in some countries club and are aligned to political parties. Certain italian clubs. Israeli clubs so it’s political from the outset.

The fans of this club cause a lot of problems with violence. Nothing to do with being Jewish.

We absolutely are well used to policing thousands of hate-filled people, as seen at the marches in London every weekend. But now we can’t manage a few of these for a night! Rubbish. If the same game were being held at a venue with a different local demographic, and a neutral MP, would it go ahead? Of course it would. If we decided to ban entire groups of football fans because it might get spicy, there wouldn’t be football matches.

The worst part is, it’s not even the actual Villa fans!! Has there ever been a situation where the policing of a match is run according to who lives near the ground, as opposed to the two sets of fans actually entering for the game?!

If, as someone else said, it’s about “protests and counter protests”, then what you’re really admitting is that we have more deranged hostile locals than we can cope with. That is a huge problem and the answer isn’t to appease them.

As I said, there are people travelling in to the area from other places that have no interest in the football.

Again, the term ‘deranged hostile locals’ being used when you really want to say something else.

Counter protesters are ONLY traveling in from other areas because of the ban. Lift the ban, problem solved then, right?

p.s. It’s YOU characterizing people as deranged and hostile when you admit we suddenly can’t police a football game in the local area. Good try though.

The Israeli fans are vile and provocative
If thugs are going on the rampage gloating that there are no children left in Gaza it shows exactly what sort of lowlifes they are

Im not trying anything, you’re as clear as day.

Youre a fool if you think lifting the ban would cause less trouble. Nothing would cause less trouble now, it’s been so stirred up by politicians.

It's like posters are deliberately closing their eyes to the timeline of what happened in Amsterdam.

Firstly, the Maccabe fans assaulted people, damaged property, pulled down Palestinian flags and went about the city making a nuisance of themselves and being louts whilst shouting incredibly offensive things about killing kids in Gaza and how Arab should die.

Following this, some of the Amsterdam fans decided to get their own back, and one of the WhatsApp chats for this called for a 'Jew Hunt'. Unpleasant, and they shouldn't have brought race into it, and shouldn't have gone down to the level of Maccabe fans.

After the match, both sides were violent and assaults occured on both sides. The footage that is often shown which we were told was the Amsterdam fans attacking Israeli fans actually is the other way round and Reuters admitted their mistake in this. The Israeli fans were the instigators of the violence, not the Dutch ones.

Given this, and Maccabe's reputation for violence and unpleasantness (beating someone with a Palestinian flag unconscious recently, booing Arab players in their own team, making monkey noises at Black players, chants encouraging rape, chants laughing about killing kids, chants that the IDF should kill Arabs etc), I have no qualms about banning them from the game. Other teams have been banned for far less.

”cLeAr aS day”. I’m not the one in favour of banning people. This situation has been stirred up by one side, out of nothing. It’s being rightly called out.

What side?

Israel is a member of UEFA. It's teams have the right to compete in their tournaments. UEFA covers Europe and West Asia so countries like Cyprus, Armenia and Israel are members.

The side that pushed to ban the other fans, obviously

No, not obvious. What side?

The side of people who want to ban Tel Aviv fans in Birmingham. Might be Ayoub Khan, Jeremy Corbyn, Owen Jones, the local postie. Anyone who signed that petition. I don’t know all the names for you but hopefully that helps. Who are the politicians you think are “stirring it up”?

Oh! Racist and disingenuous. Ok.

You definitely are, glad we agree.

What? Why in response to that post

the announcement that they were banning fans because they are unable to protect them due to the number of protests in the area (about their country, not the sport) is problematic.

Thats not quite what was said but even if it was part of the problem seems to be that these Israeli racists can't control themselves around a Palestinian flag. They beat the shit out of a man in Athens for having one. They went berserk in Amsterdam on seeing them. They are extremely racist towards Arabs, they call for their deaths and laugh at their killings of their children. A huge part of the problem is these Israeli racists reactions, they aren't tolerant of different views and react violently on seeing those views being expressed. Is that protesters fault or the fault of violent Israeli racists who want all Arabs dead?

Spot on.

It is pathetic. The standard of education amongst the British people has declined so far. You can print lies in newspapers and in the media and they lap it up. They seem to have no ability to tell truth from fiction. 2030 years ago we would have no trouble at all accepting that there is such a thing as football hooliganism.

Two separate stories about the same event I wonder why that is?

The police want the Israeli fans banned because they say they don't have the resources to guarantee their safety.

That's a terrible look. That's mob rule. Starmer is trying to get it changed because even he can see how sinister this is.

CarlaLemarchant
It’s not about banning certain races, it’s about banning a football fan base. As I said, a decision that has been made completely uncontroversially previously within the last two years about a different fan base from Poland.

This is not a fair comparison since the Polish fans were not banned completely until immediately before the Aston Villa match, after fans had violently clashed with West Midlands Police. Prior to the match, Aston Villa gave the problematic Polish team a restricted ticket allocation of 1,000 tickets (although fans without tickets also travelled). Equal treatment would be to give the Israeli team a similar restricted ticket allocation - then allow them to watch the match if they behaved themselves.

Conflating a public safety decision with racism is wrong, the fan base of some clubs earn themselves a bad reputation and sometimes the only way to protect public order is to exclude them. I don't recall these arguments about Rangers fans in Manchester or Juventus fans or whatever club is used by thugs as an excuse for their violent behaviour.

Starmer has made a grave error miscasting a decision of civic responsibility as prejudice against a group. Either the van will stand and he'll look weak and irresponsible, or he'll overturn it and own every incident of abuse and destruction that the 'fans' inflict on the UK.