January 26 – A video in which fans can be heard singing anti-Semitic insults before last week’s Premier League clash between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur is being investigated by police.
Supporters heading towards City’s Etihad Stadium in Saturday were heard chanting the abuse directed at Spurs supporters. Officers said they were treating the chanting, footage of which has been widely shared online, as a hate crime.
The video footage appears to show supporters heading to the match singing ‘You’re getting gassed in the morning’ – a disgusting reference to the treatment of millions of Jews in concentration camps during World War II.
Tottenham’s support historically has a large jewish following and thousands of Spurs fans, jewish and non-Jewish, treat the allegiance as a badge of honour and have for years used chants like ‘yid’ and ‘Yid Army’ not as term of abuse but exactly the opposite: as an expression of identity and pride.
But Jonathan Arkush, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the organisation that represents the UK Jewish community, said the kind of language used in Manchester was unacceptable.
“Sick racist chanting has been an enduring part of the football scene in this country for far too long now,” he said in a statement. “It is a criminal offence. The perpetrators should be arrested and feel the full force of the law.”
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