Assignment: Football in the Holy City

In this week's Assignment David Goldblatt travels to Israel to meet the fans of Beitar Jerusalem football club. As you'll hear in this programme the fans pride themselves on their extreme nationalist views and anti-arab chanting at matches. Beitar fans boast that an Arab never has and never will play for the club. Now under the ownership of flamboyant Russian Billionaire Arkadi Gaydamak Beitar is top of the Israeli league, but the behaviour of its hard-core fans continues to cause trouble. Since this programme was recorded, Beitar fans have been punished for a pitch invasion, and are now banned from their own stadium for the rest of the season. Beitar remain top of the Israeli league.