‘We have been on the receiving end of the far-right revival’
Jewish players are forced to endure terrible abuse in the grass-roots game, reports Tom Morgan
The outpouring of bile from the terraces in Budapest on Thursday was recognised with a shrug by team-mates from amateur club Brady Maccabi. Abuse has become so bad in the London Sunday leagues that they have been forced to call in police. “It’s been shocking – we have been right on the receiving end of the far-right revival,” says chairman Joel Nathan, who looks after 23 teams, with players aged eight to 80. “Sunday football is meant to be an enjoyable experience, yet now there is always a risk.”
Team-mates, whose greatgrandparents took part in the Battle of Cable Street to halt Sir Oswald Mosley’s goose-stepping Blackshirts in 1936, suffered their lowest point after an under-16 match. One of the players got home school one day to find a member of the opposition had called him “Jew boy”, “gay Jew” and “Nazi victim” in social media posts. References to the team “taking a gas shower” had also been written on Instagram in a private chat group.
Anti-semitism, as far as the club are concerned, is as bad in the grass-roots game as it has been for at least 20 years. Nathan added: “We used to get the odd comment when I was in my 20s playing non-jewish sides but, two decades on, it’s come back again. It’s as bad, if not worse. The habits have been passed on to younger kids. Those below the ages of 14 might not know what they are saying but, anything older, you have to say there is a real problem there.”
His assessment is supported by the statistics. In 2017-18, the anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out revealed that 52 attacks – 10 per cent of all reports to the organisation – related to antisemitism. Overall, reports of discriminatory abuse within
football were up 11 per cent last season, the sixth successive annual rise.
While attacks on Raheem Sterling, Pierre-emerick Aubameyang and chants on the terraces of Premier League clubs gain most attention, campaigners say the most insidious abuse can often be found farther down football’s pyramid.
Dave Rich, head of policy at the anti-semitism monitoring body CST, told The Daily Telegraph: “The Chelsea incident just serves to highlight the problem.”
There have already been 16 anti-semitic incidents reported to him from January to June this year, but Rich suggested the majority are going unreported because it has become institutionalised in the game.
“A lot of people almost seem to accept it as something that happens in football, and that’s where awareness campaigns are so important,” he said.
“Anti-semitism has definitely increased in recent years and football has incredible power on broader attitude.”
Nathan, meanwhile, believes the authorities need to show more leadership to ward off a potential crisis in the sport. “The education of the Holocaust and everything the Jewish people went through seems to have been lost. Education is key to sorting this out. It’s for the FA to deal with it with the strongest sanctions.”
The Instagram attack took place in April last year, after Brady Maccabi beat Enfield-based Olympiacos 3-1 in the Watford Friendly League. Teenager Joel Freedman was among the players targeted by abuse, and described recently how opponents had said “Hitler was right”, “the gas chambers were a good thing” and “we should all get gassed”.
Nathan reported the incident to Maccabi Great Britain, the police and the Community Security Trust. The opposition player was Figures for anti-semitic incidents related to football that have been reported to Community Security Trust over the past six years. interviewed by officers, fined £75 by the FA, banned for four matches and sent on an awareness course.
“We really need to see the governing bodies and police take the issue more seriously,” Nathan said. “Looking back at history, these are worrying times. We just want to play football, but there’s certain things that do cross the line and people are right not to accept them. There is no doubt in my mind that anti-semitism is rising again.”
There are around 100 amateur Jewish clubs across the United Kingdom, with dozens of teams in London alone. However, the strong presence is not reflected in the professional game. Despite many Jewish chairmen and owners in the Premier League, Joe Jacobson, of Wycombe Wanderers, believes he is one of fewer than 10 Jewish players in the top four divisions.
Many perceptions of the presence of Jewish communities in football also appear to be wrong. A 2016 article from The Jewish Chronicle estimates only around five per cent of the crowd at Tottenham Hotspur are actually Jewish.
Chelsea had been working with Kick It Out to eradicate antisemitism before events this week. The club launched an initiative to send racist supporters on trips to the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz instead of imposing banning orders, and issued a guide for stewards to improve awareness of anti-semitic behaviour.
For Brady Maccabi, change cannot come soon enough. “Often it’s the grass roots that can be forgotten,” said Nathan. “We’ll know the reforms are working when we are not facing abuse on a weekly basis.”
Shame of the game How it is affecting the grass roots