Last night, Aston Villa FC beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 2-0 – the latter are a team in which the majority of players have served in Israel’s genocidal army.
There is no doubt Zionists will now label it a ‘hate crime’. Because when Zionists lose, everyone else is antisemitic.
A team of terrorists
Out of 37 players listed for Macabi Tel Aviv this season, 29 are Israeli. Serving in the IDF is mandatory for Israeli citizens, which means that 29 of Maccabi’s players have actively committed genocide.
They can object and face a prison sentence of weeks or months, multiple times – and some do. But I would argue that it is every Israeli citizen’s moral obligation to object. Prison for a few months and a clean conscience, or murdering Palestinian babies? There is no choice.
So, of course, the pro-Palestine, anti-genocide, anti-Zionist people of the UK objected to terrorists being allowed to play football on UK soil. They quite rightly gathered before the game to protest.
We’re live on the ground in Birmingham as Aston Villa take on Maccabi Tel Aviv – and anti-genocide, antifascist activists turn out to defend the City from the Zionist far right. Follow us for updates #football #maccabitelaviv #astonvilla #birmingham pic.twitter.com/t2Niz3kcly
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) November 6, 2025
Links to the IDF
As the Canary previously reported, West Midlands police banned Maccabi fans from attending the away fixture. This was due to their history of hooliganism. West Midlands police classified the fixture as “high risk” and cited “violent clashes and hate crime offences” during the November 2024 Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv, in Amsterdam.
Of course, when this was announced, the majority of the UK’s media and political class cried ‘antisemitism’. Keir Starmer even tried to overturn the ban alongside an organised campaign from the UK’s Israeli lobby.
As the Canary previously reported:
Starmer and his front-benchers tried to insist that WMP imposed the ban because it couldn’t guarantee the safety of ‘Jewish’ fans – a lie that was quickly and embarrassingly exposed – while Israel lobbyists claimed to be members of an invented ‘Jewish Villans’ supporters club.
However, the reality was that:
Middle East Eye has revealed this evening that police in the Netherlands told WMP that more than two hundred ‘fans’ were not just a racist mob that had run riot in Amsterdam last November, attacking Muslims and other locals, but were “linked to the Israel Defence Forces” (IDF) – with “hundreds more” also “highly organised” “experienced fighters” who were determined to cause “serious violence” in Birmingham.
And in usual British policing fashion, the pigs kettled anti-genocide protesters whilst they let far-right Zionists roam free.
🚨 BREAKING 📢
Cops have KETTLED the anti-genocide, antifascist activists outside #AstonVilla stadium while letting the far-right Zionists go where they want #Birmingham #MaccabiTelAviv two-tier policing only exists for the left pic.twitter.com/ZRcOP0AEPQ
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) November 6, 2025
The Canary’s Barold was on the ground, and said:
It was shambolic policing wise. No one seemed to know what was going on. The police were really guarded about sharing any information, but to the point where I didn’t even know there was a counter demo and most people didn’t.
It started off really peacefully, and then suddenly there were just all of these footy hooligans rushing the lines shouting “where’s your gaza now” and stuff like that.
He added:
I nearly got assaulted and the police literally let it happen. They did nothing and then let the people walk away and then tried to make me leave in the same direction. They didn’t give a shit.
Barold said that sources inside the stadium told him that between 60 and 100 Maccabi fans, including about 20 “serious ultras“, gained entry to the stadium as home supporters. On the train home, several Israelis were standing, programmes in hand, speaking Hebrew and looking at their phones to check their flight tickets home from Manchester.
And some Villa fans were annoyed at the anti-fascists protests happening at the same time as the home game. Barold explained that Villa fans joined in with abusing protesters:
Some of them were literally just shouting abuse about Gaza at people who were wearing Palestine flags.
The two are not mutually exclusive. You can be a football hooligan, and you can be a racist.
Double standards
International communities have been calling on UEFA and FIFA to ban the Israeli national team, and teams within Israel – such as Maccabi Tel Aviv – from competing in international competitions.
As the Canary previously reported, back in September:
Nearly 50 prominent athletes of various nationalities and backgrounds, including France’s Paul Pogba and Morocco’s Hakim Ziyech, have signed an official petition calling on FIFA and UEFA to ban all Israel clubs and national teams from international competitions, citing what they described as:
war crimes and systematic violations against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In 2022, after Russia waged war on Ukraine, both UEFA and FIFA banned Russian clubs and national teams from participating in all competitions. However, neither did the same for Israel. This was even after Israel destroyed all of Palestine’s professional football stadiums. Locals even turned smaller facilities into refugee camps, field hospitals and even mass graves.
But still, two years after Israel invaded Gaza, UEFA are still allowing them to compete. In October of this year, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said that the football organisation ‘does not have the power to solve geopolitical problems’. Yet apparently they did previously have that power when they suspended Russia.
Of course, after all the uproar and supposed ‘antisemitism’ over the police banning Maccabi fans, we can only presume that the Zionists will label the loss as a ‘hate crime’. Because if there’s something Zionists love as much as brutally ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their land, it’s playing the perpetual victim.
Feature image via Barold/The Canary
