Hezbollah Operative Influenced UK Decision to Ban Israeli Soccer Fans

A Hezbol­lah oper­a­tive is linked to the recent UK deci­sion to ban Israeli soc­cer fans from an Aston Vil­la match. A dossier, com­piled by a pro-Pales­tin­ian group, had cit­ed sig­nif­i­cant safe­ty risks. On 19 Octo­ber 2025, the Dai­ly Mail UK report­ed that Dyab Abou Jah­jah, a for­mer Hezbol­lah fight­er, played a cen­tral role in com­pil­ing a dossier that influ­enced British police to ban Mac­cabi Tel Aviv fans from an upcom­ing Europa League match at Aston Vil­la. The doc­u­ment was cre­at­ed by the Hind Rajab Foun­da­tion and sub­mit­ted to West Mid­lands Police. The arti­cle begins:

A for­mer Hezbol­lah fight­er is behind a report that cam­paign­ers claim ‘laid the ground­work’ for the police to ban Israeli fans from attend­ing a foot­ball match in Birm­ing­ham, The Mail on Sun­day can reveal. The Hind Rajab Foun­da­tion, chaired by Dyab Abou Jah­jah, helped the ‘Game Over Israel’ cam­paign com­pile an anti-Israel dossier which was hand­ed to West Mid­lands Police ahead of a Europa League match at Vil­la Park next month. Accord­ing to the GOI cam­paign group, the doc­u­ment was inte­gral to the police’s high­ly con­tro­ver­sial deci­sion to stop Mac­cabi Tel Aviv fans from going to the match. The doc­u­ment com­ment­ed on the so-called ‘sys­tem­at­ic instru­men­tal­i­sa­tion of foot­ball cul­ture in geno­cide’ as well as illus­trat­ing ‘why Israel’s place in glob­al sport is inde­fen­si­ble’, accord­ing to its authors. It also high­light­ed the Ams­ter­dam riots when Mac­cabi played Ajax in the Europa League last year, and said: ‘[The Mac­cabi fans’] arrival in Aston – a diverse and pre­dom­i­nant­ly Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty – pos­es a real risk of ten­sions with­in the com­mu­ni­ty and dis­or­der.’ Lebanon-born Abou Jah­jah was pre­vi­ous­ly part of Islamist mil­i­tant group Hezbol­lah, which has long been embroiled in vio­lent con­flict with Israel. Abou Jah­jah has said that he was ‘very proud’ of his mil­i­tary train­ing. It comes as West Mid­lands Police caused out­rage last week after it asked Israeli fans to stay away from the Aston Vil­la fix­ture, cit­ing pub­lic safe­ty concerns.

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15205485/Hezbollah-fighter-Israeli-fans-Aston-Villa-safety-risk-dossier.html

Key Points

• Dyab Abou Jah­jah, a for­mer Hezbol­lah mem­ber, chaired the Hind Rajab Foun­da­tion, an NGO that helped com­pile an anti-Israel dossier sub­mit­ted to UK police.

• The dossier warned that Mac­cabi Tel Aviv fans could incite ten­sions in Aston, a diverse, Mus­lim-major­i­ty area near Vil­la Park in Birmingham.

• Abou Jah­jah has a his­to­ry of extrem­ist rhetoric, includ­ing prais­ing the Octo­ber 7 Hamas attacks and deny­ing the Holocaust.

• West Mid­lands Police clas­si­fied the match as high risk, cit­ing the dossier and pri­or inci­dents like the Ams­ter­dam riots.

The Beirut-London Nexus: Pro-Hezbollah Influence Operations in the United Kingdom

The Unit­ed King­dom has expe­ri­enced sus­tained pro-Hezbol­lah advo­ca­cy through aca­d­e­m­ic net­works that lever­age media plat­forms and ide­o­log­i­cal cam­paigns. Con­tro­ver­sial UK aca­d­e­m­ic David Miller has writ­ten for the Beirut-based pro-Hezbol­lah out­let Al-Mayadeen, while also pro­duc­ing con­tent for Press TV, the Iran­ian state broad­cast­er. Al-Mayadeen was estab­lished in 2012 by Ghas­san bin Jid­do, with its Gen­er­al Man­ag­er pre­vi­ous­ly serv­ing as Direc­tor of the Hezbol­lah-affil­i­at­ed Al-Man­ar TV, and the out­let has pub­lished anti-Semit­ic con­tent includ­ing Holo­caust denial arti­cles. Miller’s orga­ni­za­tion Spin­watch received fund­ing from Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-linked orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Cor­do­ba Foun­da­tion, Mus­lim Engage­ment and Devel­op­ment, and Inter­pal, which the US and Israel have des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist entity.

The Arab and Mus­lim Union for Sup­port­ing the Resis­tance, a Lebanon-based pro-Iran­ian umbrel­la group with Hezbol­lah ties, main­tains Euro­pean rep­re­sen­ta­tives includ­ing Martha Mundy, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Anthro­pol­o­gy at the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics, who helped coor­di­nate the orga­ni­za­tion’s inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence. These net­works oper­ate with­in a broad­er pat­tern of Iran­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions engag­ing with UK aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions to pro­mote pro-regime and anti-Israel nar­ra­tives through what has been described as a “Red-Green Alliance” between left-wing polit­i­cal groups and Islamist organizations.

Exter­nal references:

• Bris­tol Uni­ver­si­ty aca­d­e­m­ic unfair­ly dis­missed for anti-Zion­ist beliefs, tri­bunal rules
• Mossad tipped off UK on Hezbol­lah bomb plot in Lon­don in 2015
• David Miller’s Hezbol­lah hol­i­day has laid bare the rot at the heart of British academia

Dis­claimer: 

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.