It’s no secret that over the past two years since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, football has been a source of comfort and identity for me – not so much for the game itself, but for what it has given for an Israeli society that has gone through the unimaginable for the past two years. Football has helped Israelis survive, mourn and hope. Football has been a form of therapy, which has, after everything that has happened – and continues to happen – helped us through this difficult period.

Not only has football provided us with an appropriate form of constant acknowledgement of what is happening through ceremonies and memorials, it has also given us an opportunity to lose ourselves for ninety minutes and remember what joy feels like.

In the weeks and months after October 7, stadiums across the country became sanctuaries. We weren’t just watching football; we were mourning together, processing together, finding resilience together. The chants and songs were more than fan rituals — they were acts of defiance and unity. The sight of thousands of supporters – whether in yellow and blue, red and white, green, or any other team’s colors – singing until their voices cracked, was a reminder that life could still have rhythm and purpose even when the world felt like it was falling apart.

There’s a certain irony to the idea that football — the game we’ve always turned to for hope, for escape, for a sense of normalcy — is now complicit in deepening our pain and feels so cruel Instead of football being a refuge, it’s starting to feel like another place where we’re being punished — not for anything we’ve done, but simply for the pain we carry.

Abroad, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have been barred from attending the Europa League game against Aston Villa in Birmingham next month. British authorities cited “security concerns” as the reason for the decision, as if the mere presence of Israeli fans – Jews – in the stands pose some unacceptable risk.

Let’s be clear: this wasn’t a situation where fans had made threats, or where previous games had descended into violence (other than the pro-Palestinian provoked violence against Maccabi fans following the team’s 0-5 loss to Ajax in Amsterdam last year). This wasn’t about hooliganism or public order. This was about politics. It was about optics. It was about the fact that, to some people, the sight of ordinary Israelis waving scarves and singing songs is somehow too controversial to allow.

What message does that send? That our grief disqualifies us from being part of the global football family? That because we’ve been victims of terror and trauma, we’re too “sensitive” a presence to be seen in European stadiums?

The bitter irony is that football loves to talk about inclusion. UEFA and FIFA plaster their campaigns with slogans like “Football Unites” and “No Room for Hate.” But apparently, those principles have limits. They don’t apply if you’re an Israeli fan still trying to stitch together a sense of normal life. They don’t apply if your community is grieving. They don’t apply if your flag makes people uncomfortable.

For those of us who live and breathe sport, being shut out like this isn’t just disappointing; it’s dehumanizing. We are not terrorists. We are not political symbols. We fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, friends who save up money for away days in European play, fans who live for the chance to stand behind our team in stadiums around the globe. And we’re being told that our pain makes us a security threat.

Then, if being treated like a liability abroad isn’t bad enough, football is failing us here at home too.

The Tel Aviv derby between Maccabi and Hapoel on Sunday night was meant to be a highlight of the domestic season after a year’s absence due to Hapoel’s relegation to the Leumit League after the 2023/24 season — a fiery, passionate clash that captures the best (and worst) of Israeli football culture. Instead, it ended in chaos after flares and smoke bombs were set off inside Bloomfield Stadium, forcing police to suspend the match.

No one is denying that fan behavior – as expected – crossed a line. There’s no justification for bringing fireworks, flares and smoke grenades into a stadium and those responsible should be held accountable. But the bigger picture here is more complicated — and more troubling.

For many of us, this derby was more than just another match. It was a long-awaited moment of catharsis, especially after the return of the remaining 20 living hostages from Gaza last week. It was a chance to channel a two year’s worth of tension, frustration and grief into something communal and passionate. But instead of being given that outlet, we’re once again left standing outside, told that our passion is too dangerous, our emotions too volatile.

It’s hard not to see a pattern, Israeli fans are being treated not as supporters but as problems to be managed. Instead of helping us heal, football is now abandoning us.

Football likes to call itself “the people’s game.” It prides itself on transcending politics, on being a global language that belongs to everyone. But that rhetoric rings hollow when entire groups of supporters are treated as pariahs simply because of where they’re from or what they’ve been through, or when the masses suffer collective punishment as a result of the actions of the small minority.

We’re constantly told that sport is supposed to heal divisions. That it brings people together when nothing else can, that stadiums are among the few places left in the world where people from all walks of life can stand side by side and chant the same songs. But that lofty ideal collapses the moment Israeli fans walk through the turnstiles — if we’re even allowed to in the first place.

It’s easy to hold up football as a unifying force when it’s convenient. It’s harder when doing so means standing up for people who are politically unpopular. And right now, too many football authorities are choosing the easy way out. Instead of defending the principle that sport belongs to everyone, they’re bowing to fear, to pressure, to politics.

What’s most painful about all of this is how invisible the human side of it is. To the outside world, “Israeli fans banned from match,” is just another headline. “Tel Aviv derby suspended,” is just another story about crowd trouble. But behind those headlines are real people — people who have been through unimaginable trauma, who have lost friends and family, who have spent the past year trying to rebuild their lives piece by piece.

And for many of those people, football isn’t a trivial distraction; it’s a lifeline. It’s a small but vital part of what makes life feel normal again. It’s a space where they can shout, cry, laugh, and feel alive — even if just for 90 minutes. When you strip that away, you’re not just cancelling a match or denying entry to a stadium; you’re taking away one of the few things that’s helped people survive.

It’s important to be clear: the fans aren’t asking for special treatment. No one is demanding exemptions or privileges. All fans want is to be treated like any other supporters — whether as visiting fans from abroad or the same as any other local team that has a small but loud group of supporters acting illegitimately. Fans want to be given the same right to follow our teams, to celebrate, to mourn, to be part of the global football family.

Of course, safety is important. We understand that emotions are high and the world is complicated. But understanding those things shouldn’t mean accepting double standards. It shouldn’t mean that our identity – whether as Israelis or as just ordinary fanatics – automatically makes us a “risk.” It shouldn’t mean that our grief disqualifies us from the joy that football is supposed to offer.

At its best, football has always been about more than goals and trophies. It’s about community and resilience, finding joy and meaning in the midst of chaos. It’s about reminding us — in a world that too often tries to divide us — of our shared humanity. Right now, Israeli fans needed this more than ever. But instead of rising to that moment, too much of the world is turning its back. The world looks at our pain and decided that it’s too messy, too inconvenient and too political to accommodate.

But our pain isn’t a threat. It’s a testament to our humanity. And the game we love — the game we believe in — should be big enough, brave enough and compassionate enough to make room for it.

No one is asking for our pain to be fixed, nor is anyone naïve enough to think that football can heal everything. But I do believe deeply in the idea that football should at least try to be a force for connection rather than exclusion. But over the last week, football has failed that test. Until it does better and remembers that the people in the stands matter, the beautiful game will remain tarnished — not by the fans who love it, but by the institutions that have forgotten what it’s supposed to stand for.