Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has vowed that resources will not impede Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans from attending the fixture against Aston Villa in Birmingham next month.
She confirmed the government is working alongside West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council to “consider all the options available” to “ensure fans” from both Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv can attend the game.
She added that the initial decision to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from Villa Park next month “chooses exclusion” of Jewish people.
Ms Nandy faced questions in the Commons, after Birmingham’s safety advisory group – the body responsible for issuing safety certificates for every match at Villa Park – last week informed Villa that no away fans will be permitted to spectate.
She appeared in Parliament as the Tel Aviv derby between rivals Hapoel and Maccabi was called off on Sunday following violent clashes between supporters.
Ayoub Khan, whose Birmingham Perry Barr constituency is home to the Villa Park Stadium, claimed MPs hoping to overturn the decision were playing “fast and loose with” community safety.
And Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree Paula Barker warned of a “slippery slope when safety concerns are ignored” at football stadiums, following the Hillsborough crowd crush in 1989.
“This decision was not made in a vacuum,” Ms Nandy told the Commons.
Referring to the attack on the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue earlier this month, the Culture Secretary continued: “It is set against the backdrop of rising antisemitism here and across the world, and an attack on a synagogue in Manchester in which two innocent men were killed.
“It has a real-world impact on a community who already feel excluded and afraid.
“It is therefore completely legitimate to support the independence of the police to conduct that risk assessment and to question the conclusion that follows when it excludes the people at the heart of that risk.
“Following the decision last week, the government has been working with West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council to support them to consider all the options available, and to tell us what resources are needed to manage the risks, to ensure fans from both teams can attend safely.
“If the assessment is revised, the safety advisory group will meet again to discuss options.”
Ms Nandy also said: “It is not for the government to assess the risks surrounding this football match, but we are clear that resources will not be the determining factor in whether Maccabi Tel Aviv fans can be admitted, and that this fundamental principle that nobody in our country will be excluded from participating in public life because of who they are must be upheld.”
In response to an urgent question in the House of Commons from former Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston on Monday, Nandy said the final call on whether to admit Maccabi fans must ultimately be made by the police.
However, she said the country “should be appalled” that the initial risk assessment was, she claimed, “based in no small part on the risk posed to those fans that are attending who support Maccabi because they are Israeli, and because they are Jewish”.
She added: “The solution that is proposed, to exclude a group from attending, is wrong. It chooses exclusion rather than looking at the full options available to manage that risk.
“This is about who we are as a country.”
