Last month the first attempt to develop a multi-agency approach to combat anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in English football took place in London. The FA: Kick It Out, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the National Association of Muslim Police were present at the seminar. “One of our concerns is ensuring that people are made aware of what constitutes anti-Semitic and Islamophobic abuse and how we can encourage people to report incidents,” said event facilitator Lucy Faulkner. “However, our overall concern is to tackle this abuse and ensure that anyone can participate in and enjoy football whatever their background. We believe we have a collective responsibility to tackle anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as no one organisation can do this. We know there is still more to be done to be done to achieve race equality and we are not complacent. We are committed to eliminating anti-Semitism and Islamophobia from football and are seeking a co-ordinated, all agency approach.”

This needs the active participation of the police to have any chance of success. Superintendent Dal Babu was one of those who attended the seminar. He is clear about what he wanted it to achieve. “We want to raise awareness,” he told Empower-Sport Magazine. “The incident that we were contacted about really was the football match at Middlesboro. The National Association of Muslim Police got contacted by a whole range of people about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Often the two issues go hand in hand. We had a number of partners who are working together to see how to get rid of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in football. We want a clear plan to influence the issues and change people’s perceptions. I’m very, very pleased that we got the key people there.”

Chris Walley, the FA’s Head of Stadia, Safety and Security, also believes that the Mido incident was pivotal in the decision to confront Islamophobia in football. “The FA was looking for a strong message from Newcastle United - whose supporters abused Mido - to remind supporters that that type of abuse is not acceptable,” said Walley. “A strong message was sent from Newcastle and fortunately we haven’t witnessed any repeat of that since the incident.”

But what about anti-Semitism? Tottenham Hotspurs have often been targeted because of their perceived Jewish support base. Complaints were made by Spurs fans against rival supporters such as those of Arsenal and West Ham United for calling them ‘Yids.’ Fans of those clubs object that some Spurs supporters describe themselves that way. However, these comments are positively tame compared to what Ajax fans face, especially at the hands of bitter rivals, Feyenoord. Hissing noises symbolising the gassing of Jews in the concentration camps regularly occurs at these matches. The following is one of the worst chants: “We’re hunting the Jews! There is the Ajax train to Auschwitz! Sieg! Sieg! Sieg!” Spurs fans complain of gas noises too, but the chanting does not compare to that suffered by Ajax fans. The FA intends to contact their Dutch counterparts and Ajax about it too. “That is a good idea,” says Lucy Faulkner. “I’ll add that to my list.” The chanting is more extreme and indeed offensive, especially to Jews, in the Netherlands, but Jewish supporters in England have been discouraged from following football by being subjected to gassing noises - a point emphasised by Henry Grunwald QC, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.¹

The Israeli manager of Chelsea, Avram Grant was always going to have his work cut out for him. Replacing a popular and very successful manager is never easy, but José Mourinho was both very successful and extremely popular to fans of the Stamford Bridge outfit who have never taken to Grant. On occasion the disapproval of Grant has crossed the line into racist abuse. A Chelsea season ticket holder was racially abused by a group of about fifty of his fellow Chelsea fans at the recent match against Derby County for objecting to one of them shouting out ‘Grant, you Jewish bastard.’ The fan claimed that he was then subjected to racist abuse followed by thoroughly offensive references to the Holocaust. The fan preferred not to be named. He met Chelsea’s head of security, but was angry at the way the incident was dealt with by them. He believed that Chelsea had not done enough, but they say that they helped the police by providing CCTV footage and ‘abhors all forms of discrimination.’ This incident occurred shortly before the seminar and Chelsea showed that it took racism seriously by issuing the following warning to their own supporters ahead of the match against Spurs. “The club has been praised for the huge strides made in tacking racism at Stamford Bridge and we want to ensure that any fans who use anti-Jewish abuse during the game are identified and appropriate action will be taken.” It also said: “Hissing noises, singing songs about ‘Yids’ and other offensive songs about Jewish people are unacceptable. Anybody caught chanting or making anti-Semitic or racist remarks will be arrested and prosecuted by the police. Chelsea will also ban guilty offenders from Stamford Bridge.”² So there were issues that the participants at the seminar needed to consider.

“It’s the same area of work [as Islamophobia],” says Faulkner. “There is a lot of anti-Semitic abuse at some of the London clubs like Spurs. I think we can get players: fans and managers to work together in a coalition to say this is unacceptable instead of ten or twelve years of fighting mass chanting in the terraces. It’s players saying ‘this is unacceptable’ that made it (monkey-chanting) unacceptable. I’d like to think that that would happen in this area too. I think that will come out of the action plan.” Dal Babu agrees. “We need to have a similar campaign in relation to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” he says. “We want to change people’s perceptions.”

Alex Goldberg, the Community Issues Director of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, attended the seminar as well. He was concerned about the failure to confront anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the past. He had high hopes for the initiative. “We hope that this new initiative will produce an action plan that will see better stewarding: more training, new methods of policing racism and other measures that will both combat racism and promote the game among religious minorities,” said Goldberg. “They are looking into strict liability for clubs where racist incidents occur and also a system of deducting points that already happens in many European leagues.”

He was also concerned at the lack of support from the judiciary even in the recent past. “Education is needed among the judiciary,” he said. There has been a successful prosecution following a racist incident at a Barnet v Arsenal friendly in 2007. Unfortunately, the magistrate decided not to use his legal powers to issue a banning order that would have excluded the perpetrator from future matches. You would not allow someone with a drink-driving offence back into a car, so why would you allow someone who has committed a specific offence of racist behaviour at a match back into a football ground.”

Anti-Semitism is an important issue in football today. The FA decided that it needed partners to spread the message of zero-tolerance of all forms of racism. Goldberg was delighted to participate. “The Board of Deputies is pleased to be working with the National Muslim Association, Met Police, FA and other key parts of the football fraternity to combat racism. Racism is not kosher. Racism is not halal,” said Goldberg.

But what about the disgruntled Chelsea fan who was abused when he tried to complain of racist abuse? What could be done to encourage people like him in the future? It is a safety and security issue. They have to feel secure and confident enough to report abuse when it happens. Chris Walley knows that safe methods to report such abuse contemporaneously are required, so what does he think is the most important thing that needs to be done? “Encourage fans to report any incidents of racism that occur inside a football stadium at the time they occur,” said Walley.

That is easier said than done. It is one of the biggest problems facing any initiative against racism in football. If evidence is not obtained when an incident occurs it is difficult, but not impossible to investigate it and act upon it and if those who do so are treated like the Chelsea fan was at the match against Derby County, they are unlikely to come forward. Walley wants to see the initiative consider that too. “Clearly there need to be ways for fans to be able to report them at the stadium anonymously if necessary,” he says, “such as through confidential text messaging, so it is possible for supporters to report incidents of racism without exposing their vulnerability to the public. I would encourage supporters to report racism when it happens, so the club is then in a position to act upon that report and gather the vital evidence that could even lead to a prosecution. We sometimes get reports after the event. It is very difficult to go back after the event and try and establish who said what. That’s why we need supporters at the time to tell us.” It is a crucial issue, but there are others that the initiative should consider.

There was an area of anti-Semitism that was not considered in the seminar. Palestinians are Semites too. Last year the Palestinian Under-19 team was due to tour England. The FA invited them to a training session and to visit Wembley Stadium. Blackburn Rovers scheduled a match against them at Ewood Park, but politics intervened. Despite a history of competing abroad, including in Scandinavia, and returning to their homes in Gaza,³ the Middle East Office of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office refused to issue visas for the trip, partly because it was unilaterally decided that two of the players were unlikely to return to Palestine. There is no actual evidence that this was true and plenty to suggest the opposite. As tour organiser Tayseer Barakat points out the players had been abroad before, but love their country so much that they have endured hardships to represent Palestine and to return home.

Empower-Sport Magazine recognised the importance of this tour for the development of football in Palestine - something that UK Visas spokesperson John Neill claimed was important to them too. “We consider the development of sporting ties between Britain and Palestine and all countries to be of paramount importance,” said Neill. “We err on the side of the caution.” On August 15^th the application for visas was refused and the opportunity to build those ties was lost. We intervened and got FIFA involved too. In 2000 FIFA developed a policy to deal with this very problem. “When some Palestinian players needed to go outside of the Palestinian territories the Palestinian FA was sending to FIFA, and by the way to me, the list of the players’ names, their dates of birth and all the details,” said the Delegate to the FIFA President for Special Affairs, Jérôme Champagne in an exclusive interview with Empower-Sport Magazine. “We send that to the Israeli General Secretary and to the Israeli FA and we obtain the visas like that. For the past ten years we have intervened when we were asked to for exit visas and other things. We have a long, long record of supporting Palestinian football. Since 2000 we are working hand in hand with the Israeli FA to solve the problems when we can.”

He explains that FIFA believes in supporting the Israeli FA to support their Palestinian counterparts and gave examples of the success of the policy. “In the case of the Palestinian-Israeli issue, we are extremely lucky that the leadership of the Israeli FA in the past ten years is a leadership which is convinced that football can do a lot,” he said. “We are not in a blame game. We are very lucky because the leadership and everyone in the Israeli Football Association is convinced that football should be left to football people. We are convinced that we should use all the means we have including the local FA - in this case the Israeli FA - to find solutions. We are just trying to find solutions.” Empower-Sport Magazine made him aware of the particular circumstances of the Under-19 tour. FIFA was then contacted by the Palestinian FA and FIFA requested that the British government reverse its decision and allow the tour to proceed.

The tour had other important supporters who recognised the need to spread the message of peace and unity through football. “It is very disappointing that the authorities have not seen fit to grant the necessary visas for the young Palestinian players. It is without question that football can help to remove barriers and heal communities and I feel that this decision has hindered that process,” said Bobby Barnes the Assistant Chief Executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association. “Look at the amazing scenes in Iraq when that war-torn country achieved success in the Asian Cup competition. These scenes illustrate the power of football when one saw Iraqis of all backgrounds celebrating together. It is to be hoped that in the future governments will acknowledge such effects and look more favourably on future visa applications.”

Sadly the decision was not reversed and the tour never took place. It was a terrible wasted opportunity to build bridges. “We are very sorry to hear of the cancellation of the tour of the Palestinian national youth football team to England,” said Khaled abu-Zahir, a senior official of the Palestinian FA. “As there was huge Palestinian interest on many levels, the cancellation has distressed the players as well as the coaching staff and members of the Palestinian FA. When I informed the players many of them cried as they didn’t expect it. All of them dreamt of representing Palestine abroad.”

And the English FA expressed similar sentiments. “The FA was committed to supporting the team when here,” said Jane Bateman, their Head of International Relations. “This included coaching sessions and a tour of Wembley Stadium. We are very disappointed to hear that their visa applications have been turned down. We understand the applications were discussed at a high level. The FA asked if there is any action that we could undertake to overturn that decision and they said no.”

Empower-Sport Magazine was very disappointed too. “We hoped that this tour would have strengthened the sporting bonds, not just between Britain and Palestine, but between Israel and Palestine too,” said Empower-Sport Magazine’s Editor Derek Miller at the time. “Here was a perfect opportunity to show the world that progress towards lasting peace and justice can be re-started from humble origins.”⁴ The tour was cancelled and talented Palestinian players were denied the opportunity to develop their skills and become football ambassadors in the truest sense of those words. The initiative on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia must include developing links with Palestinian football and facilitating such tours in the future, so Palestinian football can be supported and encouraged to develop to its full potential. From such seeds mighty trees can grow