Police banned Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans over fears they would ‘come to harm from UK extremists’
West Midlands Police have been accused of “appeasement” after admitting they banned Israeli football fans from entering Birmingham because they feared sections of the community would attack them.
In an excruciating appearance before the House of Commons home affairs committee, the organization’s top figures sought to justify the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from their match against Aston Villa on November 6 last year, sparking political uproar with Sir Keir Starmer “furious at the decision”.
Deputy Chief Constable Mike O’Hara stressed that the move was “safety-based” and that “there was no conspiracy whatsoever.”
The admission comes as new documents reveal concerns community groups in Birmingham could be armed.
The fixture had been classed as high risk by West Midlands Police based on “available intelligence and previous incidents”, with police citing violent clashes and hate crime offenses at the 2024 Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam. However, Dutch Police disputed the information in a West Midlands Police report detailing the reasons for the ban.
Giving evidence to MPs on Tuesday, Deputy Chief Constable O’Hara denied West Midlands Police was focusing solely on intelligence from Dutch police and noted there was “huge surprise” in the community about the arrival of Maccabi fans.
He admitted: “There was a lot of intelligence that people were actively seeking out Maccabi fans and seeking violence against them.
“There were a number of options available. The particular challenge was that Maccabi fans were targeting the community. All of that was part of the heat of the situation.”
Tory MP and former Home Office special adviser Nick Timothy lashed out at the police, claiming: “The Mafia said Israeli fans were not welcome… and the police chose to appease and we all know where that ends.”
He accused senior officers of repeatedly “lying” to explain their actions and of failing to address “extremist elements in the communities they are supposed to police”.
New documents detailing minutes of security advisory group meetings on the reasons behind the ban show that the police assessment was subsequently changed to reduce the risk to Maccabi fans to a medium level and raise the risk to people in the local community to a high level.
Mr Timothy said Times Radio: “What I can say with certainty is what we know from the documented evidence, and that is precisely that the police fabricated the evidence to fit predetermined decisions that they and the security advisory group had already reached.”
The police officers received a hostile reception from MPs on the committee, who struggled to understand why Maccabi fans were banned and notes of important meetings were not kept.
Dame Karen Bradley, the Conservative Party chair of the committee, said: “We feel you have to justify banning these supporters and that this scraping has been done to find a reason.”
More embarrassingly, senior police officers admitted that the decision to ban Israeli fans from a football match against Aston Villa was based on fake information found in a Google search for information about a match against West Ham in 2023.
However, they also admitted that they had not taken notes of their conversations with Dutch police about further information behind the ban and had “made assumptions” about the number of police officers needed to police the event.
West Midlands Chief Constable Craig Guildford, quizzed on the quality of the intelligence he had previously given the committee regarding information regarding Maccabi’s game against Ajax in 2024, said: “I stand by what was said. It was said based on the information we were given.”
He said: “All the information and intelligence we received and documented was reviewed. The mistake made on West Ham’s part was that someone searched on Google because they couldn’t find the reference.”
Cheshire Chief Constable Mark Roberts, head of the UK football policing unit, explained: “Normally we plan for away fans and their risk fans to cause mayhem with opposition fans. The difference here was that some Maccabi fans threatened to engage in conflict with the local community.
“Obviously, some Maccabi fans on social media or [people who were] They were boasting about what was happening and the response to it, as if it were. This was a distinctive dynamic. “This was a unique set of circumstances.”
At the time, Sir Keir condemned the ban as the “wrong decision” and home secretary Shabana Mahmood has since ordered the police watchdog to examine how forces in England and Wales provide risk assessments to security advisory groups that inform measures on high-profile incidents.
