Take action by writing to both Aston Villa FC and the footballing authorities to demand urgent action is taken to cancel the match.

Posted: 17th October 2025

Next month, Aston Villa FC are due to host Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League.  

Allowing this match to go ahead would whitewash Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians. Take action by writing to both Aston Villa FC and the footballing authorities to demand urgent action is taken to cancel the match.

Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has killed many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including many hundreds of Palestinian footballers. It has annihilated Gaza’s footballing infrastructure such as stadiums, training facilities and pitches.  

In the occupied West Bank, Israel has also systematically targeted Palestinian sports infrastructure, while its daily military invasions of towns and refugee camps have killed scores of Palestinian footballers.

Allowing Israeli football teams to compete in international competitions sanitises this horrific violence, and allows Israel to cynically present itself as a normal country, obscuring the truth of its oppression of Palestinians.  

The Israel Football Association directly participates in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians. It governs football clubs based in illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians, facing down Israel’s military assaults and ethnic cleansing, have long demanded that Israel is banned from international sporting and cultural bodies as a means of holding it accountable for its crimes, just as apartheid South Africa was.  

The FA and UEFA must act now and cancel the match, while Aston Villa must refuse to host it – there can be no sports as usual with Israel’s genocide and apartheid.  

Maccabi Tel Aviv itself has been directly involved in Israel’s atrocities. The club has sent “care packages” to Israeli soldiers committing genocide in Gaza and organised for videos of club employees serving as Israeli soldiers in Gaza to be shown as motivation ahead of matches.  

The club’s fans have a long history of anti-Palestinian racism and violence. This was exemplified in Amsterdam last year, when its fans marauded through the streets attacking residents while chanting genocidal slogans, including “why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there”. These fans must not be allowed to descend on Birmingham in November.

Take action to demand that the match does not go ahead.

In solidarity,

Lewis,
Campaigns Officer, PSC