Ajax tells fans to leave politics at home ahead of match against Maccabi Tel Aviv

Ajax is advising supporters against taking “flags of conflict areas or other political expressions” to the Johan Cruijff ArenA for their UEFA Europa League match against the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday. The club is also asking the fans to come to the stadium earlier than usual as they expect the checks before entering the stadium to be longer than usual. A spokesperson would not say what will happen with the flags that are discovered.

This reaction is in line with the response from the Ajax Supporters Delegatie, an Ajax supporters group, who made it clear on Monday that they oppose any flags of conflict areas and other political slogans surrounding the Europa League match.

"We will not tolerate this, either inside or outside the stadium, and we will intervene where necessary." Ajax did not want to respond to that statement.

The club is expecting around 2,600 Maccabi fans in the away section of the Arena on Thursday. The match is scheduled to kick off at 9 p.m. It will likely not be possible to prevent those supporters from hanging many Israeli flags there.

It was announced earlier in the week by a “collective of social organizations” called Week 4 Palestine that demonstrations were planned at the ArenA. The group called it “immoral and unacceptable” that Maccabi Tel Aviv is welcome in Amsterdam.

A spokesperson for the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, said that a protest from Week 4 Palestine has been reported to the municipality. Furthermore, the municipality is preparing carefully "as always around demonstrations and football matches", she said.

Ajax have won two out of their three Europa League games thus far and have just come off of a very successful week in which they beat rivals Feyenoord and PSV. Maccabi have lost all three of their games in the competition thus far.