The West Midlands Police (WMP) acknowledged an inaccuracy in its report “was wrong” but maintained its decision in requesting Maccabi Tel Aviv fans should have been prevented from attending the game at Aston Villa.
The Athletic first reported on October 16 that WMP had requested that Maccabi supporters were prevented from buying tickets to the match on November 6, with the police force later clarifying the decision was “based on current intelligence and previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 UEFA Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam.”
Confirmation of Maccabi supporters not attending came later in the day and after WMP shared its request with the Safety Advisory Group (SAG). WMP deemed the match a “high risk fixture”, scoring 77 on the UKFPU (United Kingdom Football Policing Unit) matrix.
At a Home Affairs Committee meeting on Monday, with questions put forward by a hearing panel to WMP Chief Constable Craig Guildford, assistant chief constable Mike O’Hara and the police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster. Lord John Mann, an independent advisor to the UK government on antisemitism, was also asked to provide a viewpoint.
The hearing took place to assess WMP’s intelligence, which contributed to the banning of Israeli fans. Since the match between Maccabi and Villa, Dutch police, who operated around the fixture between Ajax and Maccabi the previous year, disputed claims of violence around the match in Amsterdam and made by WMP.
On Saturday, Foster had stated he would seek assurances over the intelligence that led to Maccabi fans being prohibited from attending.
The Athletic has seen a document produced by the WMP detailing the information it presented to the SAG (Safety Advisory Group) meetings on October 7 and 16, the date in which the decision to ban Maccabi fans was made, and on October 23, when that decision was reviewed following significant media and political interest.
Police vans outside Villa Park prior to the match (Clive Mason/Getty Images)
At Monday’s hearing, Guildford acknowledged an error in the report which had been raised by Mann, where the document stated Maccabi Tel Aviv last “played in the UK against West Ham United in the UEFA Europa Conference League group stage on 9th November 2023, held at the London Stadium.”
As Mann remarked, this was factually incorrect, with West Ham instead playing Greek side Olympiacos on that date in a different competition, the Europa League. Maccabi instead played against Ukrainian side Zorya Luhansk in Poland.
“The one assertion in relation to West Ham is completely wrong,” said Guildford. “This is the result of some social media scraping that was done and is wrong. That is one element in a document which was eight to nine pages long. But the key tenets are right.
“We searched through social media to see what’s trending, who’s following the posts, etc. I say candidly that element was wrong, but it had no material impact on that document whatsoever.
“That particular piece of information, which was wrong, and which was placed on the document, was irrelevant. We have taken a careful approach, not a cavalier approach. We haven’t tried to make anything fit.
“I have no reason to doubt the integrity of my chief inspector or my chief commanders who were involved in the process.”
When asked by the panel why WMP did not seek intelligence from previous Maccabi matches in England against Stoke City and Chelsea rather than fictional fixtures, Guildford defended the decision, insisting the error was not suggestive of a flawed overall report, but instead proving an anomaly.
“I’ve been really straightforward (in saying) that was wrong,” said Guildford. “But that doesn’t mean the document was wrong. In terms of the other teams, that was from some years ago, rather than the recent past.
“It (the decision) was made for a good reason, without fear or favour and yes, we can look and learn lessons — we will be having a review after the event and we are fully participating in the HMIC (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary) exercise after. We will of course have some recommendations to feed. I believe they made the decision by applying their professional judgement and acting properly in all of the circumstances.”
Guildford and O’Hara explained WMP had been “planning to facilitate the event with both sets of supporters” once the draw had been made between the two clubs.
The empty away end during Villa’s 2-0 win (Clive Mason/Getty Images)
However, Guilford described discussions with the chief inspector on October 1 as changing “the way the assessment was heading.” The chief inspector, he said, had spoken to three Dutch commanders who provided information of Maccabi fan’s behaviour in Amsterdam, who in turn outlined violent clashes involving Maccabi ultra fan groups that were “very well organised and militaristic in how they operated”, attacking members of “the local community, including taxi drivers” as well as tearing down Palestinian flags, with people also thrown in the river.
“Our mission is to keep people safe and police it in the best possible manner,” added Guildford. “All those people who are coming, to the clubs legitimately, there and the local residents who live in a tight bit of geography.
“It’s very difficult to guarantee everyone’s safety, we have to access risk on often incomplete, complete information and what we always try to do is minimise the risk wherever possible, (and) minimise the risk to everybody we have identified as a concern. And that’s what we did. It’s not about eliminating 100 per cent of risk because I don’t think that’s always possible.”
Members of the panel described the intelligence sought as “questionable”, with Mann, who had spoken before Guildford, disputing the incidents which took place in Amsterdam, having travelled to the Netherlands to conduct a report for the government prior to Villa and Maccabi being drawn against one another.
“It (the incidents in Amsterdam) had been greatly exaggerated in my opinion and the facts bear me out on that,” said Mann.
“I was surprised at the decision to ban the fans. I don’t think it was the most appropriate or sensible decision. That’s got nothing to do with politics; it’s to do with the practicalities of avoiding conflict in a conflict situation.
“I have a copy of the statement of facts done by the chief of police from Amsterdam. So what happened in Amsterdam and what was generally a very good policing operation, not a very bad policing operation — almost a classical policing operation.
“It helps inform but doesn’t fully inform the situation in Birmingham because there were no arrests for Maccabi Tel Aviv attacking local Dutch people. There were none. There is a warrant out for one person, I don’t know the details.
“The suggestion Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were going round trying to find local people, specifically from the Muslim community going, to quote, ‘into Muslim areas’ didn’t happen. What happened was they acted as ultras, whereby you go to a city, all in your colours and mixed with so-called Ajax ultras who were drinking in the day before, singing hugely objectionable songs on both sides, some flares were let off and that’s it.
“From a policing point of view, they contained those visitors and on the day of the fixture, there was one Israeli fan going from the square and who was clearly behaving improperly. One person on a Palestinian demonstration was arrested at the same time, but that was it on the day until after the fixture.
“It then went wrong after the fixture in the evening and there were reasons why it went wrong. There was a number of Israeli’s who were attacked on the street. Five hospitalised, none seriously enough to be detained and around 30-40 had minor issues.
“There is no evidence of any local people having been injured. None.
“My problem with how it was done was that some of the intelligence is not very good and not intelligent at all. And the tactics used could have been better.”
A statement from Amsterdam Police, published by Sky, says that ahead of the game, “pro-Palestine activists and Maccabi supporters shouted insults and provoked each other” and “clashed”, but “no big clashes” occurred.
Before the Home Affairs committee closed, it requested that WMP answer further questions which would be put to it in writing, while also asking to provide minutes from the meeting with SAG.
On the night of the match against Villa, ten people involved in the protests were arrested, with WMP confirming on Friday morning that five of those remained in custody.