Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

British Soccer Fan Arrested for ‘Yid’ Chant

A fan of the British Tottenham soccer club was arrested for chanting “yid” during a home match.

On Sunday, defying a police threat of arrest for using the term, supporters of Hotspur reportedly chanted “Yid Army” as well as “We’ll sing what we want” during a Premier League match against their London rivals, West Ham United.

One Spurs fan was arrested at halftime. West Ham went on to deliver a crushing 3-0 blow to Tottenham, denting their ambitions in the wide-open league race currently led by north London rivals Arsenal.

Police had talked to fans about using the term as they entered the White Hart Lane stadium, according to reports.

Image by eddy portnoy

Tottenham has many Jewish supporters, who sometimes call themselves the “Yid army.” However, the term often is used derogatorily by fans of Hotspurs opponents.

The English Football Association previously had said in a statement that fans could face criminal charges for using yid, calling the term “inappropriate in a football setting.”

The statement also said that “use of the term in a public setting could amount to a criminal offense, and leave those fans liable to prosecution and potentially a lengthy football banning order.”

In the three weeks since the governing body of English soccer threatened to arrest fans, Spurs supporters had continued to use the term during matches.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.