Ahead of the Europa League game between VfB Stuttgart and Maccabi Tel Aviv, various complex topics are mixed together. Football and politics cannot be separated.
Thursday evening, floodlit game, European Cup. Once again one of those special football nights in Stuttgart. But the fact that it is… Away team Maccabi Tel Aviv faces an Israeli team acts, takes care of an exceptional situation in the city. The local police say they are preparing for one of their largest operations, “on a broad spectrum including terrorist scenarios,” says Stuttgart’s deputy police chief Carsten Höfler.
“I understand the preparation, both by the police and the club. It’s good that these preparations are in place,” says journalist Felix Tamsut, who was born and raised in Israel, in an interview with SWR Sport. “And yet I am of the opinion that it is not as dramatic as it is made out to be.” Tamsut is an expert on fan culture and the connection between politics and football.
“Football itself is political”
“Football itself is political and should be and remain political. Especially in football, we have a social space in which many different people, many different classes, all sorts of things come together. And politics doesn’t stop at the stadium entrance,” says Yannick Haap. He is an education consultant at Together1, a prevention project run by Makkabi Germany, and advised VfB Stuttgart before the game.
If you take a closer look at the various subject areas and events from the recent past, a very complex picture emerges that quickly threatens to become blurry without closer inspection.
riots by Maccabi fans in Amsterdam
In November 2024 it was around Europa League game between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv led to riots came. There were hunting situations for Israeli fans. At the same time, Maccabi fans chanted anti-Palestinian and racist slogans. The much debated question’Who started it?’ cannot be answered so easily, according to Tamsut: “I think there is enough evidence to say that there were anti-Semitic hunting situations. Where, according to the chat groups that were published in court, people literally wanted to ‘hunt Jews.’ would have existed, even without each other.”
Maccabi fans excluded in Birmingham
Because of these incidents in Amsterdam, among other things, Maccabi fans should be banned from the European Cup game at Aston Villa in Birmingham in November 2025. The Security Advisory Group (SAG), which is responsible for issuing security certificates at Villa Park, had advised Aston Villa and UEFA not to allow away fans. Although the fan exclusion was supposed to be lifted, Maccabi Tel Aviv, amid strong criticism, decided not to use the guest ticket quota.
“In my opinion, Birmingham is a completely different story,” analyzes Felix Tamsut and continues: “This is a story about a police force that thought: We’re making life easy for ourselves and we’re banning fans and that’s it.” As a comparison, Tamsut cites numerous other fan scenes that have been considered “problematic” that have played in England in recent years and where a fan ban was never an issue: “So you have examples of Greek clubs, Serbian clubs that have literally killed people.”
Maccabi fans
And yet, in connection with the game in Stuttgart (Thursday, 6:45 p.m. / live in the audio stream at swr.de/sport) also take a closer look at the fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv: Just a few days ago, Maccabi supporters in Tel Aviv attacked coach Zarko Lazetic’s apartment with rockets and firecrackers and demanded his resignation.
Social media post on Twitter: Maccabi supporters attack apartment
Felix Tamsut describes the situation as follows: “The Maccabi Fanatics are a right-wing radical group of thugs. They are basically Israeli right-wing radicals who also carry their national pride into football. At the same time, one has to say that Maccabi Tel Aviv is probably the most supported club in Israel.” Maccabi is comparable to Bayern Munich in Germany: the club with the most fans, the club with the most titles. A club “that really has fans from all over Israeli society,” says Tamsut: “I wouldn’t say, and this is very, very important to emphasize, that all Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are completely disgusting and right-wing and racist. That’s not the case.”
Anti-Semitism & racism in the stadium
At the same time, Tamsut also looks at social developments in Germany – and in German fan scenes – and urges caution: “Nowadays we are in a situation where right-wing and racist forces, and yes, also anti-Semitic forces, are becoming more and more popular in society. And that also has an influence on fan culture. That also has an influence on the stadiums. And I think you have to be very, very vigilant.”
Yannick Haap from Together1 also looks at the current developments in a similar way: “The last game by an Israeli team in Germany was almost twelve years ago, when Maccabi Tel Aviv was a guest at Eintracht Frankfurt. Times have of course changed, especially when it comes to anti-Semitism – and definitely not for the better. That’s exactly why it’s nice that we can make our contribution, that our expertise is valued and, in quotation marks, needed.”
Together1 sees itself as the prevention and education department of the Jewish sports and umbrella organization Makkabi Germany and is committed to creating a football sport free of discrimination and anti-Semitism.
Preparations at VfB Stuttgart
Together1 advised VfB Stuttgart together with ‘What Matters’ in the run-up to the game against Tel Aviv. ‘What Matters’ supports companies and associations in developing a stance on social issues such as anti-Semitism, racism or discrimination. “The stumbling block did not come from us as Makkabi or from What Matters proactively, but it was actually SC Freiburg and VfB Stuttgart who approached us because the topic was important and close to their hearts,” says Haap, describing the contact made by the two Bundesliga clubs.
“And so little by little a larger group developed, where all the players involved on the match day were simply present,” said Haap. The VfB board chairman Alexander Wehrle and the president of Makkabi Germany, Alon Meyer, had already exchanged information in detail well in advance. The result was, among other things, a joint workshop.
“A week ago we were invited by VfB Stuttgart together with What Matters and spoke for almost two hours with 70 VfB employees – from the stadium spokesman to the fan representative, the employees of the security service or the catering and the press department – about anti-Semitism in football, about the special nature of October 7th, 2023 and also the effects on German and Israeli football,” reports Haap about the collaboration with VfB.
Security in the stadium
Haap emphasizes that security in the stadium and in the city is the responsibility of the police and VfB Stuttgart and that Together1 was rather responsible for the question of raising awareness: “This is a special game and unfortunately it is under circumstances that neither we nor all the clubs like. None of us, none of the VfB employees, are interested in the measures that have now been taken. But that is of course also part of the reality when we are currently talking about the threat to Jewish life in Germany.”
The “MHP Arena remains a place for football,” writes VfB Stuttgart on its website and Felix Tamsut also concludes with the words: “As long as it’s about football, everything will be okay.”
Broadcast on Wed., December 10, 2025, 12:00 p.m., swr.de/sport: Interview with Felix Tamsut
Broadcast on Wed., December 10, 2025, 12:00 p.m., swr.de/sport: Interview Yannick Haap
