The game that shouldn’t have happened.

UEFA fail to follow their ‘Russia’ precedent and fails to ban Israeli clubs from European competition despite the nation having invaded a sovereign country.

Politics and partisanship aside, the failure to act with consistency enabled unwelcome voices to impact the club and game, before, during, and after what should have been a routine European tie.

The timeline of political posturing and ill-informed and misdirected opprobrium is as depressing as anything that has surrounded a football match.

10 October 2025

A preliminary decision is reached and conveyed to the Home Office.
The decision made by SAG, the independent Birmingham City Council Safety Advisory Group, reaches its conclusion (whether right or wrong), having studied the evidence provided, including West Midlands Police’s (WMP) liaison with the Dutch and Israeli authorities following serious violence in Amsterdam earlier in the season.

*Maccabi Tel Aviv have played both their Europa League home games this season in Serbia after UEFA ruled it was unsafe to host matches in Israel.”

17 October 2025

A final decision is made to ban any away fans attending the Maccabi Tel Aviv match scheduled for 6 November 2025.
The Home Office is informed of the decision.
Villa are informed of the decision.
Villa report the decision in a club statement.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemns the decision and castigates an unknown populace as anti-semitic.
The Government commits to overturning the decision by all means necessary.
Caroline Dineage, Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, writes to WMP with barely concealed contempt for their competence and demands answers focused completely on the away team, with flagrant disregard for home followers or the local community and does so with an admitted ignorance of the ‘facts’ that led to the SAG decision.
The Home Office is revealed to have been informed of the decision over a week before Villa’s club statement.

18 October

Right-wing agitator and claimed British patriot Steven Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson calls for his followers to join him in supporting “Maccabi Tel Aviv at Villa Park.”

19 October 2025

Maccabi Tel Aviv fans riot at their home ground, causing the game against Hapoel Tel Aviv to be abandoned.

Israeli police report “risks to human life” from the rioters following “serious violence”.

20 October 2025

No. 10 Downing Street rejects that the incidents of 19 October in Tel Aviv justify, all or in part, the SAGs decision to ban away fans from attending the fixture.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy confirms the SAG group, which made the original decision to ban fans, was “operationally independent”.
Nandy claims, without providing evidence, that it was the local community around Aston and Witton and Aston Villa’s matchgoing fans who were the problem with the ban being due in “no small part” to the “risk posed … to those fans… who support Maccabi… because they are Israeli and … Jewish.”
MP for Birmingham Perry Barr Ayoub Khan points out the “deliberate, disingenuous move … to conflate matters of policing … with religion.”
Nandy condemns the Maccabi fan chants read out by Khan, but claims it is he who is being disingenuous as he looks to “divide and exclude.”
Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn corrects Nandy and reiterates that Maccabi fans were banned due to their record of hooliganism.
Nandy claims this was “a small element” and doubled down that there were “very real risks” of fans being attacked because they are Jewish.
Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed asks Nandy whether Israeli police were being anti-semitic the previous evening.
Nandy resorts to semantics in a losing argument and accuses her questioner of anti-semitism.

21 October 2025

Maccabi Tel Aviv senses a PR win and declines to accept any tickets should the ban be overturned.
Meanwhile, Maccabi use their platform to rail against "hate-filled falsehoods" whilst the UK government doubles down once again on claims of anti-semitism, unequivocally directed at the residents of Aston and Witton and the match-going fans of Aston Villa.
The intelligence and risk assessments are leaked.
The intelligence completely undermines the claims and insinuations of Starmer, Nandy and Dineage and fully supports the position taken by Ayoub, Khan, Mohamed and Corbyn.
It is also revealed that the UK football policing unit fully supported the conclusions reached by WMP.

*No further statements are made by Starmer, Nandy and Dineage*

*No apology is forthcoming to SAG, WMP, the local community or the match-going fans that have been tarred with claims of anti-semitism.*

However, the Home Affairs Committee writes to WMP Chief Constable Craig Guildford and police commissioner Simon Foster, over the ban despite neither party being part of the risk assessment or decision.

2 November 2025

Birmingham Police commander Ch Supt Tom Joyce confirms that, as WMP and SAG had anticipated, a series of protests from various coalitions of groups pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli will take place around the match.

5 November 2025

It is announced that, even with a ban on away supporters, over 700 officers will be on duty for the game due to the highly emotive narrative created around the fixture.

Ross Barkley 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 replaces Tyrone Mings 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 in Villa’s Europa League squad after the latter is ruled out until 2026 due to the hamstring injury he suffered at Liverpool. Clubs are allowed to make one change to their squad before the final Group stage game, as long as the replaced player is injured for at least 60 days from the date the injury occurred.
John McGinn 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 becomes the 36th of 1,017 players who have played for Villa to make 300 appearances for the club.
John McGinn 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 becomes the first player since Gabriel Agbonlahor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 in December 2013 to make 300 appearances for the club.
Marco Bizot 🇳🇱 makes his 10th unused substitute appearance for Villa.
Ian Maatsen 🇳🇱 scores his third goal and contributes his fifth goal involvement in 57 appearances in a Villa shirt (22 Starts).
Pau Torres 🇪🇸 makes his 75th start in a Villa shirt (85 Appearances).
Boubacar Kamara 🇫🇷 makes his 20th European appearance for Villa.
Amadou Onana 🇧🇪 makes his 30th start in a Villa shirt (42 Appearances).
John McGinn 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and Ollie Watkins 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 make their 28th European appearance for Villa - equalling Gordon Cowans’ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 club record.
Emiliano Buendía 🇦🇷 makes his 50th substitute appearance for Villa (110 Appearances).
Ross Barkley 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 makes his 10th unused substitute appearance for Villa.
Morgan Rogers 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 makes his 85th appearance for Villa.
Harvey Elliott 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 makes his 5th unused substitute appearance for Villa (5 Appearances).

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