‘It was just made up’: West Midlands Police under fire for fabricated reasons behind Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban

Britain’s ​​Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, called for the resignation of the Chief Constable for West Midlands police, following the revelation that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were banned from coming on the basis of fabricated intelligence.

“The West Midlands Police cited concerns about the Tel Aviv fans, based on a previous game in Amsterdam, but the Dutch police have now shown that is completely false,” he told the House of Commons on Monday. 

An investigation carried out by The Sunday Times suggested that West Midlands Police claimed Israeli fans had thrown "innocent members of the public into the river," a claim since found to be baseless, and even an inversion of the facts.

“There was no mob of 500 fans targeting the Muslim community in Amsterdam. In fact, many Maccabi fans were themselves attacked,” Philp clarified, on the basis of statements from Dutch police. 

“Nobody was thrown in a river apart from one Maccabi fan. The Maccabi fans were not skilled and organised fighters, it was just made up.”

Amsterdam police spokesman Sebastiaan Meijer confirmed that the only football fan thrown into the canal was an Israeli, who was told he could only get out of the freezing water if he said “Free Palestine.”

In what were described as “pogroms” at the time by many politicians in Israel such as Naftali Bennett, Maccabi fans were hunted down and attacked in Amsterdam on Nov. 8 last year after the soccer game between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. 

Israel’s embassy to the U.S. posted videos of the ambushes, which, according to the Telegraph, had been planned and organized through WhatsApp and Telegram groups. One man recorded himself in his car: “Today we’re going to hunt Jews,” he said.

Footage showed Israeli fans in Amsterdam being beaten and chased with knives, mobs storming hotels where they believed Israelis were staying, and others trying to hit Maccabi fans with vehicles. Several videos also showed Israelis fleeing from the rioters by jumping into the canals. Dutch police made 62 arrests and Israel sent 8 rescue planes to evacuate some 2,000 people.

This year, ahead of the game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa on Nov. 6, posters began appearing in Birmingham, UK, encouraging people to look out for Zionists. Signs attached to lamp posts said, “Zionists not welcome” and “If you see a Zionist, call the anti-terror hotline #ZionistsNotWelcome.”

מישהו יודע למה הם לא עונים לי בטלפון?🤣🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/ZLh3Re4O0B

— יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) November 6, 2025

Philp also described footage of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Birmingham trying to hunt down Maccabi players before the game, condemning it as “despicable.“


Yet it was Maccabi Tel Aviv fans who were banned from the match in Birmingham last month, citing concerns that they were the ones causing the violence. 

Philp pointed out that two members of the Safety advisory group involved in decision making, named Waseem Zaffar and Mumtaz Hussain, had expressed vehement anti-Israel views in the past. “They were not impartial,” the conservative MP said. 

Although West Midlands Police did not respond for a few days, they eventually released a statement saying that their evaluation “was based primarily on information and intelligence and had public safety at its heart.”

The statement continued: "We assessed the fixture between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam as having involved significant public disorder. We met with Dutch police on 1 October, where information relating to that 2024 fixture was shared with us."

"Informed by information and intelligence, we concluded that Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters - specifically the subgroup known as the Maccabi Fanatics - posed a credible threat to public safety. The submission made to the SAG was based on information and intelligence which helped shape understanding of the risks," it said.

West Midlands Police ordered a peer review by the UKFPU, the NPCC, and subject-matter experts, and the Oct. 20 assessment fully backed the force’s approach and decisions.

"We are satisfied that the policing strategy and operational plan was effective, proportionate, and maintained the city’s reputation as a safe and welcoming place for everyone," they said.

Prior to the match, West Midlands chief superintendent Tom Joyce cited “a section of Maccabi fans” targeting people, together with the trouble surrounding last year’s match in Amsterdam, as informing their decision making. He told Sky News, "It is exclusively a decision we made on the basis of the behaviour of a sub-section of Maccabi fans, but all the reaction that could occur obviously formed part of that as well."

With high tensions due to the war with Hamas in Gaza, reactions to Israeli fans appearing in Birmingham en masse could reasonably present a policing challenge. However, the ban on Maccabi fans was widely criticized, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying it was the “wrong decision.”

Philps revealed that a potential ban on Maccabi fans was made known to the Home Office as early as Oct. 2, a full two weeks before the decision was made, leading him to ask, “Why did the Home Office then do nothing to ensure the Maccabi fans could be properly protected?”

The Conservative MP for Croydon South, insisted, “We must never allow the threat of mob violence to dictate policy.”