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3 hours ago
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Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv will not be allowed to attend the Europa League match at Aston Villa on 6 November owing to safety concerns.
West Midlands police said they had classified the fixture as “high risk”, based on “current intelligence and previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 Uefa Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam”.
The police said they believed the measure would “help mitigate risks to public safety” and that they remained “steadfast in our support all affected communities, and reaffirm our zero-tolerance stance on hate crime in all its forms”.
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Villa said the local safety advisory group had instructed the club that “no away fans will be permitted to attend Villa Park for this fixture”.
“The club are in continuous dialogue with Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local authorities throughout this ongoing process, with the safety of supporters attending the match and the safety of local residents at the forefront of any decision,” the statement said.
The decision comes almost a year after there was significant unrest when Maccabi played at Ajax. A report by Dutch police into the disorder, which lasted two days, found that Maccabi fans had torn a Palestinian flag down from the facade of a local building and burned it, shouted “fuck you, Palestine”, and vandalised a taxi, among a series of incidents before the fixture.
In the hours after the match what were described by Amsterdam’s mayor as a series of “hit and run” assaults on Maccabi fans led to five people being hospitalised and a further 20 to 30 being slightly injured. Sixty-two people were arrested by Dutch police, mainly for public order offences.
Ajax were prevented last month from bringing fans to a Champions League match in Marseille after the French interior ministry banned “anyone claiming to be an Ajax Amsterdam supporter” from travelling between the French border and the southern city. Ajax said they had been informed the decision had been taken “on grounds of public safety and security”. That same week, the prefecture of Naples prevented the selling of tickets to Eintracht Frankfurt fans hoping to travel to their Champions League match against Napoli.
