{"id":226120,"date":"2025-10-20T05:01:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T05:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/226120\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T05:01:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T05:01:18","slug":"aston-villa-stadium-must-not-be-a-no-go-area-for-jews-says-ed-miliband-maccabi-tel-aviv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/226120\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa stadium must not be a no-go area for Jews, says Ed Miliband | Maccabi Tel Aviv"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aston Villa<\/a>\u2019s football ground cannot be a \u201cno-go area\u201d for Jews, Ed Miliband has said as he reiterated calls for a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv<\/a> fans to be lifted.<\/p>\n

The energy secretary said ministers were working to ensure supporters of the Israeli club could attend the Europa League fixture at Villa Park on 6 November.<\/p>\n

Birmingham\u2019s safety advisory group is meeting next week and is expected to produce proposals about the extra resources West Midlands<\/a> police would need to allow the match to go ahead safely with away fans.<\/p>\n

The force last week<\/a> barred Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from the match because of concerns that officers would not be able to police it safely. They cited \u201cviolent clashes and hate crime offences\u201d at a Maccabi Tel Aviv match in Amsterdam in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News whether Villa Park was a no-go area for Jews, Miliband replied: \u201cNo, and it can\u2019t be, and I\u2019m very, very clear about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot have a situation where any area is a no-go area for people of a particular religion or from a particular country, and we\u2019ve got to stamp out all forms of prejudice, antisemitism, Islamophobia, wherever we find them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about a petition calling for a boycott of Israeli teams in the UK, Miliband said: \u201cI profoundly disagree with that approach, with what is being said in that petition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former Labour leader said the \u201cvast majority of Muslim people in this country would disassociate themselves\u201d from suggestions that Maccabi Tel Aviv<\/a> fans could not come to Aston Villa because it was a predominantly Muslim area. But he said \u201cintegration is not something you can ever take for granted\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Home Office has offered West Midlands police extra support<\/a> to ensure the match can go ahead with all fans, with ministers piling pressure on officers to reverse the ban.<\/p>\n

It emerged over the weekend<\/a> that Aston Villa told club stewards they would not have to work during the fixture, saying they understood that some might have \u201cconcerns about attending work\u201d.<\/p>\n

The BBC reported that staff were informed they had permission to skip their duties before a decision was made to ban away fans.<\/p>\n

In an email on 3 October, stewards were told that \u201cregarding the upcoming fixture against Maccabi Tel Aviv \u2026 we appreciate that some of you may have concerns about attending work\u201d.<\/p>\n

Those who were meant to work on the day were told they would \u201cbe able to submit a one-off absence request\u201d and this would \u201callow you to register your absence for this specific fixture\u201d. Aston Villa<\/a> told staff \u201cthis type of absence will not affect your contractual minimum attendance of 80%\u201d.<\/p>\n

West Midlands police said they had classified Villa\u2019s home fixture against Maccabi as \u201chigh risk\u201d based on intelligence. The force also cited the match between Ajax and Maccabi in Amsterdam, where more than 60 people were arrested over violence that authorities said was fuelled by a \u201ctoxic combination of antisemitism, hooliganism, and anger\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aston Villa\u2019s football ground cannot be a \u201cno-go area\u201d for Jews, Ed Miliband has said as he reiterated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-226120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}