Standing with Maccabi’s football hooligans against local police – is that what patriotism looks like now? | Jonathan Liew

Tommy Robinson is said to be going to Villa Park as a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan. Do the politicians jumping on this bandwagon care what they are doing

If social media posts are anything to go by, Tommy Robinson is planning to visit Villa Park next month as a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan. What can possibly have attracted the Luton-born political activist to the Israeli Premier League’s second-placed club? The stylish all-action midfield play of Dor Peretz? The stirring run to the group stages of the 2004-05 Champions League? Perhaps, in the fashion of the club’s former manager Robbie Keane, Robinson’s embrace is simply the fulfilment of a cherished and multifaceted boyhood dream.

But of course there is a natural synergy there too, one we should probably have identified long before the Uefa computer pitted Aston Villa against the club long known in Israel as “the country’s team”, and inadvertently threw a hand grenade into British politics. Like Robinson, Maccabi attracts a fervid following of young men from the far right, who gather at weekends to chant racist and anti-Arab slogans. Like Robinson’s disciples, Maccabi’s fans have occasionally been known to indulge in a little light violence. A decade ago Maccabi fans unveiled a banner reading “refugees (not) welcome”, a refrain with which you can imagine the artist formerly known as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon nodding heartily along.

Jonathan Liew is a Guardian columnist

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