The coach of Israel’s national soccer team, Ran Ben Shimon, said Tuesday that he was shoved last week in Athens by a man shouting derogatory statements.

The incident last Thursday joined a growing list of reported anti-Israel incidents in Greece over the past week. Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar called on Greek authorities on Tuesday afternoon to “act against these expressions of antisemitism.”

The coach and an assistant coach, Gal Cohen, were in Athens ahead of a game between Hapoel Beersheba and AEK Athens. The pair were walking down the street when a man approached them and, according to a statement from the Israel Football Association, “began making derogatory remarks, apparently after he heard them conversing in Hebrew.”

“The two ignored him and after he initiated bodily contact with them, they distanced him from the area together with other civilians,” the statement, reported by the Kan public broadcaster, added.

Channel 12 reported that the man screamed, “Free Palestine.”

“The ugly incident in Athens was dealt with quickly and efficiently, and I’m sorry only for the boorishness and rudeness of that person,” Ben Shimon said in a statement reported by Hebrew media. “I doubt he even identified us as coaches of the........

© The Times of Israel