West Midlands Police ‘fabricated evidence’ to ban Maccabi supporters

West Midlands Police downgraded the threat to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending an away fixture in Birmingham, despite initially supporting a ban based on supposed security concerns.

Later, the force reportedly produced fabricated evidence to retrospectively justify the ban after local council officials requested a clearer reason due to external challenges.

The Times reported that officers only produced “significant” and “new” “intelligence” about Maccabi’s fanbase after a Birmingham council staff member confided that they had faced questions and been “asked to obtain” information to pre-empt criticism or claims of “anti-Jewish sentiment”.

Police and Birmingham city council had already agreed to operate “on the assumption” of “no away fans” when Maccabi Tel Aviv played Aston Villa in November.

Leaked minutes from a safety advisory group meeting suggest police based their initial support for it on what one officer described as “my professional judgment” and “in the absence of intelligence”.

West Midlands police changed its approach and focused overwhelmingly on the disorder that broke out when Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters attended a game in Amsterdam in November 2024.

Between October 7, when the first safety group meeting took place, and October 23, the final meeting, police downgraded the threat it said Israeli fans faced (“high” to “medium”), upgraded the threat to the Muslim community (“medium” to “high”), and exaggerated the police response to disorder in Amsterdam (1,200 officers to 5,000).

The city’s 1,600 Jews, initially said to face a “medium threat”, did not appear in the final analysis:

It claimed that Israelis “randomly” threw innocent civilians into canals and that hundreds of fans “linked” to the IDF attacked “Muslim communities”, requiring the deployment of thousands of Dutch officers.

The Times reported that Chief Constable Craig Guildford stood by the allegations even after police in the Netherlands dismissed them as untrue or misleading.

Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, said the new paperwork showed West Midlands police had “invented” its claims to fit a political decision made in response to local pressure.

Writing in The Sunday Times, he said: “Some might care little about foreign football fans. But this scandal is far more serious. It is about whether we can trust the police to do their vital work without fear or favour, and who holds the power in modern, multicultural Britain.”

Approached for comment by the newspaper, West Midlands Police said it did not “have any more updates”.