Parents prevent children from ‘playing football with Jews’ as FA supports investigation

A grass-roots football club is facing claims that at least one of its junior players was stopped from taking the field because the members of the opposing team were Jewish.

The Football Association is supporting an investigation into allegations of discrimination made against parents who were alleged to have stopped their offspring playing.

Initially reports claimed one parent had stopped their youngster playing because he or she had “objected to their child playing football with Jews”. However, claims later emerged online via a parent on the Jewish team’s side that four parents had intervened to stop children from playing.

Telegraph Sport has opted not to name the teams involved to protect the children’s privacies.

The accused club, which has provided academy players to Premier League teams, issued a statement condemning racism as soon as the allegation was made. The team is said to have only put out nine players, having already been under-strength, with only 10 players initially available.

The FA told Telegraph Sport in a statement: “We are aware of this incident, and we are supporting (the relevant County) FA with their investigation into this matter. We take all forms of discrimination, including antisemitism, very seriously and will not tolerate it across our game. If any instances of discrimination are reported to us, we will work closely with the relevant County FA and authorities to take the strongest possible action.”

The club that included Jewish players are also understood to be carrying out an internal investigation into the claims. “We do not have any comment at the moment,” the club told Telegraph Sport.

However, the claims come as a host of Jewish organisations in Britain report increased hostilities following Israel-Palestine bloodshed in recent weeks.

When contacted by Telegraph Sport about the claims, the accused club said it wanted “to make it unequivocally clear that as a club, we do not tolerate any form of racism, discrimination, or abuse of any kind.”

The club went on to say “any form of racism, intimidation, discrimination or abuse has no place” and “will be investigated fully and may result in removal from our club”.