West Midlands police to be questioned over Israeli football fan ban
West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council leaders will later be grilled by MPs over their decision not to allow Israeli football fans to attend a match in the city last year.
The decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa in November was criticized by the prime minister and other politicians, with some suggesting it amounted to antisemitism.
BBC News received a letter from the Dutch police inspectorate in December; This letter appears to contradict West Midlands Police’s claims about previous behavior by Maccabi fans which it used to justify the ban.
West Midlands Police maintains it banned fans due to concerns for the safety of local people.
The decision to allow the match to be played without Maccabi fans was announced in October, three weeks before the fixture.
Aston Villa said the decision was taken by the Birmingham Security Advisory Group, which assessed the match as “high risk” due to unrest at previous Maccabi matches.
Despite criticism from the government and opposition politicians, the match was played without away fans.
West Midlands Police chief constable Craig Guildford and Birmingham City Council leader John Cotton will be questioned by Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday.
Guildford was recalled by the committee after giving evidence last month.
The debate over why away fans were banned has been ongoing since October, when the Safety Advisory Group, which included the council, club and police, made the decision for what they said were safety concerns.
West Midlands Police has repeatedly cited unrest at the Maccabi match in Amsterdam in November 2024 as the reason for the ban.
At meetings of the security group in October, they claimed that 500-600 Maccabi fans targeted Muslim communities the night before the Amsterdam match, saying there were “serious attacks, including random members of the public being thrown into the river”.
Authorities, who had previously said the figure was 1,200, also claimed that 5,000 police were needed to combat the unrest in Amsterdam.
In November, a representative from the police force in Amsterdam said they did not recognize the allegations.
Last month West Midlands Police hit back after a senior officer suggested Dutch police were only questioning the allegations due to political pressure.
However, an institution that oversees the Dutch police supported the Amsterdam police’s explanation of what happened.
“We do not see any new facts or circumstances that would require a revision of these findings,” Dutch Inspector General Liesbeth Huijzer said in a letter seen by BBC News.
Conservative MP Nick Timothy, who asked the Dutch Inspector General to intervene, said they had “confirmed what we have suspected for a long time”.
He added: “The facts in Amsterdam do not remotely resemble West Midlands Police’s claims.”
Minutes leaked from the security group, first reported by the Sunday Times and these images, seen by BBC News, also reveal that police said they would opt for a ban despite a “lack of intelligence”.
A summary of the closed-door meeting on October 7 said the police’s choice was determined by what one officer described as “conversations with the piers”. [sic] and my professional judgment”.
Those present at the meeting, including representatives of the municipality, police, fire brigade and Aston Villa, were reminded that this was a “confidential discussion” and “should not be shared”.
The Sunday Times reported two days later that an official from Birmingham City Council had asked the police to provide further evidence of how the ban would help ensure the safety of fans due to concerns it could be “wrongly interpreted as anti-Semitic sentiment”.
At the security group’s next meeting on 16 October, West Midlands Police claimed that there was now “significant intelligence based on recent matches indicating the potential for disorder involving Maccabi Tel Aviv fans”.
West Midlands Police has been approached for comment.
