Tel Aviv football team says it is working to ‘stamp out racism’ among its fan base.Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv has said it will turn down any tickets offered to its fans for a match in the United Kingdom, even if an earlier decision by local officials to bar the team’s followers from attending is reversed.Maccabi Tel Aviv said on Monday that “hard lessons learned” meant it had decided to decline any offer of tickets for the Europa League game against Aston Villa.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“The wellbeing and safety of our fans is paramount,” the team said in a statement posted online. “Our decision should be understood in that context.”The club also said it had been working to “stamp out racism” within the “more extreme elements” of its fan base.“Our first-team squad consists of Muslims, Christian and Jewish players and our fan base also crosses the ethnic and religious divide,” it said.The team’s decision came a day after Israeli police cancelled a match between Maccabi and its rival Tel Aviv team Hapoel before kickoff over what they described as “public disorder and violent riots”.The move by Israeli authorities to cancel the game stood in contrast with criticism by British and Israeli leaders of Birmingham City’s decision to ban Maccabi fans from the November 6 match at Villa Park in Birmingham, central England.UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the ban by the city’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) “the wrong decision”, while Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar called for the “shameful” and “coward decision …
