West Ham football club has warned its fans against chanting antisemitic slogans during tomorrow's match against Tottenham Hotspur.
The club, which is co-owned by David Sullivan and David Gold, who is Jewish, said it would ban supporters from the club if they chanted hate messages during the game at its stadium, the Boleyn Ground, in east London.
In a statement, a spokesman said: "The club will continue to adopt a simple zero tolerance policy towards any form of anti-social or discriminatory behaviour and any fan found to be acting inappropriately - including racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic behaviour - will be punished to the full extent of the law and banned from attending future matches.
"It promises to be an extra special occasion, with two sets of passionate fans in a capacity crowd getting behind their team. Therefore it is vitally important that every West Ham supporter attending the fixture remembers that they are acting as ambassadors for our club and their behaviour should reflect the values and standards that we set.
"Any inappropriate behaviour is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated by the club, whether it be in the stadium, the journey to or from the game or any other public place."
The move has come after wide condemnation of an incident in 2012, whereby West Ham fans appeared to mock the gassing of Jews in the Holocaust – as well as a knife attack on Spurs fans in Rome. One season ticket-holder was banned as a result.
Spurs has a large number of Jewish fans among its support.
Simon Johnson, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, welcomed West Ham's statement.
He said: “There is a long tradition of clubs reaching out to their supporters and discouraging racism in advance of high profile fixtures involving Spurs. The Leagues and the FA encourage clubs and supporter groups to take steps to reduce tensions and avoid racist chanting from occurring. To that end, I welcome West Ham’s intervention and hope that it will be positively received and enable the match to be played and watched in the right spirit, with no racist or discriminatory behaviour.”
