Maccabi Tel Aviv’s soccer team returned to Europe on Wednesday for the first time since its fans were attacked in the Netherlands earlier this month, incidents that authorities in Israel and across Europe condemned as antisemitic.
The team is set to face Turkey’s Besiktas in an Europa League match on Thursday, relocated to Hungary. The game at Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen will be played without fans due to security concerns following the violence in Amsterdam on November 7, which left five people hospitalized and resulted in numerous detentions.
Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach Zarko Lazetic emphasized the team’s focus on the game despite the surrounding tensions. “It’s not a question for me what happened outside of the stadium. We saw some videos, but we really try to focus on football,” he stated. “We’ll see tomorrow what the effect is.”
The violence in Amsterdam erupted after local authorities prohibited pro-Palestinian demonstrators from gathering outside the stadium where Maccabi was playing against Dutch team Ajax. Video footage showed a large group of Israeli fans chanting anti-Arab slogans as they approached the match. Following the game, local youths reportedly sought out Israeli fans, resulting in physical assaults, as described by Amsterdam’s mayor.
The city’s police commander characterized the incidents as having “an antisemitic character.” Maccabi press officer Ofer Ronen-Abels asserted that the violence in Amsterdam “had nothing to do with football.”
Prior to the assaults, Besiktas had requested to move its home game against Maccabi, originally scheduled for Istanbul, to a “neutral ground” due to security concerns
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