(JTA) — Supporters of London’s Tottenham Hotspur team chanted “Yid Army,” a term banned by the governing body of English soccer, during a match on Yom Kippur.
Spurs fans, who call themselves the Yid Army, also chanted “We’re Tottenham Hotspur, we’ll sing what we want” during the Premier League match against Norwich City on Saturday and applauded team stars with the chant “Yiddo.”
The chants come days after the English Football Association released a statement saying that the association believes the term “is likely to be considered offensive by the reasonable observer and considers the term to be 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.”
The statement has angered the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust, which represents more than 5,000 fans, The Telegraph reported.
The Trust said in a statement that “should Spurs’ fans’ use of the Yid identity come to an end, this should be as a result of the feeling among the Spurs community that it was time to move on.”
“While we recognize that Spurs fans use of the Y-word and associated identity may have caused some upset to members of the Jewish community, we sincerely believe no Spurs fan uses the term in a malicious way.”
The term is often used by other soccer teams to describe Spurs fans in a derogatory way.
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