Uefa Promised to Investigate Maccabi Tel Aviv Over Amsterdam Racism. Then It Went Quiet

Football authorities broke their promise to investigate racism by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam last year, campaigners say.

The allegations come ahead of the Israeli side’s match against Aston Villa on Thursday. The match has turned into a political football following the local council’s decision last month to ban Maccabi fans from the match, a move culture secretary Lisa Nandy said “chooses exclusion” of Jewish people.

Now it appears that the decision was in fact based on the real risks assessed by the police – risks that footballing authorities seem to have failed to properly investigate.

Last month, FairSquare, an international non-profit that campaigns for better governance in football, wrote to the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa) accusing the organisation of abandoning its commitment to investigate racist behaviour by Maccabi fans in Amsterdam last November.

The letter, seen by Novara Media, noted that after the violence in Amsterdam, Uefa issued a statement saying that it would “examine all official reports, gather available evidence, assess them and evaluate any further appropriate course of action in accordance with its relevant regulatory framework”.

“There is no evidence of Uefa conducting any such investigation,” the letter said. Novara Media contacted Uefa asking about its apparent failure to investigate the incident, but received no response.

“Had Uefa conducted a full investigation and consulted anti-racism groups in Israel,” the letter added, “they would have discovered that the racist behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam reflected a serious systemic problem.”

Nick McGeehan, co-director of FairSquare, told Novara Media: “Given that Uefa has previously banned multiple groups of foreign supporters from traveling to away matches on the basis of racist, violent behaviour, and the fact that it said it would investigate the racism and violence that surrounded Maccabi Tel Aviv’s trip to Amsterdam, its failure to do so looks like a distinctly political omission – and one that has unfortunately enabled misinformed politicians and journalists to present the West Midlands Police decision as being rooted in antisemitism.”

Events in Amsterdam last year provide crucial context for the controversy surrounding Thursday’s match in Birmingham.

While prime minister Keir Starmer and culture secretary Lisa Nandy originally suggested that the police and council’s decision failed to stand up to antisemitism, it later emerged that police intelligence considered Maccabi fans looking for a fight to be the likely source of trouble. A report in the Guardian claimed that the decision was based at least partly on intelligence provided by Dutch police to the West Midlands Police about Maccabi Tel Aviv’s visit to Amsterdam last year.

The incident gained international attention as Israeli prime minister Isaac Herzog denounced the events as an “antisemitic pogrom”, while president Benjamin Nethenyahu dispatched military planes to evacuate Israeli citizens. However, Dutch police told their UK counterparts that violence flared after Maccabi fans picked Muslims to attack, leading to reprisals against Dutch Jews. According to Middle East Eye, Dutch police also said that 200 Maccabi fans were linked to the Israeli army.

The day before the match, footage showed Maccabi fans tearing down Palestinian flags from homes while saying “death to Arabs”. Arab taxi drivers were also attacked, although police could not confirm the nationality of the attackers, as no arrests were made. Maccabi fans gathered in Dam Square were filmed saying “fuck you” to locals and “fuck Palestine”.

On the way to the match, fans were filmed singing “Let the IDF win, fuck the Arabs”. During the match, Maccabi fans failed to observe a silence for the 200 victims of flooding in Valencia.

In subsequent clashes, five people were hospitalised and 62 were arrested. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that ten Israelis were injured.

Of the upcoming Aston Villa match, Nandy has claimed that the ban on Maccabi fans is “unprecedented”. Away fans do in fact get banned from travelling to matches from time to time. Police bans are indeed unusual, but only because usually it would be Uefa’s responsibility to ban fans, not the police’s.

In 2023, Uefa banned Polish side Legia Warsaw from selling away tickets for five matches after crowd disturbances at Aston Villa. In 2019, Uefa banned fans of Red Star Belgrade from their side’s Champions League game at Tottenham Hotspur, due to racist behaviour. The same year Uefa banned Eintracht Frankfurt fans from a Europa League game at Arsenal because of crowd trouble against Vitoria Guimaraes.

“In a sense the ban [by police] is unprecedented,” McGeehan said, “but the blame for that lies with Uefa.”

Uefa has faced repeated calls from human rights organisations to ban Israel from its competitions, a call reiterated by FairSquare in its letter.

Amnesty International has called on Fifa and Uefa to ban Israel from its competitions until the Israeli Football Association bans the six clubs based in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Amnesty argues the inclusion of these teams contravenes both international law and Article 64.2 of Fifa’s statutes, which says: “Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without the latter’s approval.”

The letter from FairSquare cites a report by Kick It Out Israel, an anti-discrimination organisation not associated with the UK campaign of the same name, which found “a significant rise in racist chants in football stadiums, accompanied by a lack of meaningful enforcement against such incidents” during the 2024/25 season. The report found a 64% increase in racist chanting during the season, which was the third consecutive season racist chanting increased. Of the 14 clubs in the Israeli Premier League, Maccabi Tel Aviv had the worst record of racist chanting, with 118 incidents recorded.

Uefa statutes stipulate that member associations must “implement an effective policy aimed at eradicating racism and any other forms of discrimination from football and apply a regulatory framework providing that any such behaviour is strictly sanctioned.”

This provides “clear grounds” for a suspension of the Israeli Football Association from Uefa, FairSquare said.

More than 700 police officers, horses and dogs will be deployed to the Aston Villa game on Thursday, and a no-fly zone for drones imposed.

Though Maccabi fans have been banned, far-right and pro-Israel protesters, including Stephen Yaxley-Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson, are expected to protest the ban outside Villa Park.

West Midlands Police said: “We know protests by different groups will take place on the day, and we have plans in place which balance the right to protest with our duty to protect all communities in Birmingham.”