An update on my article relating to the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans being prevented from attending their teams match against Aston Villa in light of today's developments
In the last couple of hours, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has declared no confidence in West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford in light of a report from Inspector of Constabulary, Andy Cooke, relating to their handling of last October’s Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv match that took place at Birmingham’s Villa Park football stadium. Having wrote an article on WMP’s decision to prevent Maccabi fans from attending the game, one that was made on the back of guidance from Birmingham City Council’s Safety and Advisory Group (SAG), of which WMP is part of, I thought it best to provide my own update.
One finding from Cooke’s report is truly as embarrassing as it is unprofessional - that of an intelligence report compiled by WMP as part of its case to prevent the attendance of Maccabi fans containing an AI hallucination. As referred to by John Mann (member of the House of Lords) in a December Home Affairs committee meeting:
“Early on in the intelligence report, it says: ‘The most recent match Maccabi played in the UK was against West Ham in the Europa Conference League on 9 November 2023. This was part of the ‘23-24 European campaign. It marked Maccabi Tel Aviv’s last competitive appearance on UK soil to date.’
“That is in the intelligence report, but that did not happen. West Ham have never played Maccabi Tel Aviv.
“On that day, West Ham played Olympiacos of Greece and beat them 1-0. I think Tel Aviv were playing a Ukrainian team somewhere.
“If that was the case, I would expect, for a proper police intelligence report, that someone would talk to the Metropolitan Police about what happened two years ago when these Maccabi ‘hooligans’, as they are called, came to London, because obviously there would have been problems.
“No one could do that because the fixture did not take place.”
Obviously, Guildford has to resign his position. Whether the decision to prevent Maccabi fans attending or not was correct, the use of AI to gather intelligence is one of extreme negligence.
But what of that decision?
Thanks to the general stupidity of WMP, the vast majority of politicians and Israeli supporters all over the country now feel vindicated in the belief that the force were either in cahoots with, or bowed down to, “Islamist” groups in the Birmingham area, involving themselves in a plot to smear Maccabi fans out of an antisemitic mindset or for the appeasement or Islamist antisemites.
Finding that the force’s case for “banning” Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was built on a foundation of “confirmation bias” and fabricated intelligence, the conclusion among many in Parliament and in the media is that Maccabi fans, meaning Jewish people, were discriminated against in favour of another ethnic group. Furthermore, many findings shown that evidence against Maccabi fans, which I also cited in my article, were either “exaggerated” or untrue, particularly around the infamous match between Maccabi and Ajax in Amsterdam. I don’t really have much choice here, I feel, other than to go over that evidence.
Is the “Hooligan” Label Correct?
First of all, my article asserted that Maccabi fans have a history of violence and racism. This is backed up from data supplied by a Kick It Out (KIO) Israel report, that found Maccabi fans to having the most recorded instances of racist chanting (118) in the 2024-25 season, ranking them as the most prolific offenders in an Israeli Premier League that was found to have recorded racist chanting in every stadium, “with the exception of F.C Ashod”.
Monitors confirmed the use of the specific chants I mentioned in my article, including “Let the IDF win, fuck the Arabs” and “Why are there no schools in Gaza?”.
Though Kick It Out’s report looks at the weekly calls at Israeli football stadiums for the return of the hostages in a positive light, it is hard to not link the rise in racist, anti-Arab chanting and the events of 7th October 2023, and the subsequent genocide in Gaza.
Was the Decision Justifiable?
The Home Secretary’s declaration of “no confidence” rests on the conclusion that while the match was high-risk, the police abused their powers to reach a politically convenient outcome. In Mahmood’s words to the House this afternoon, WMP “overstated the threat posed by the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, while understating the risk that was posed to the Israeli fans if they travelled to the area (Aston, Birmingham).” This is a reference to that aforementioned “Islamist” threat, or that of locals who planned to arm themselves.
This is a crucial point, and one that needs further clarification. Like any inner-city area, Aston has it’s share of gangs. It also has a large Muslim population. This is important context, and one that is being somewhat shied away from in favour of the Tory led narratives of “Islamists.” Going off Maccabi’s track record, their stance on the Israeli genocide, and their behaviour towards pro-Palestinian supporters, of which they would have come across in Aston, then of course Maccabi fans themselves would have been at risk. To be frank about this, any retaliation that the Maccabi fans were met with in Amsterdam would have been dished out and more on the streets in and around Villa Park. And this shouldn’t surprise anyone. When you are literally putting two opposing factions together in close proximity, and in the emotionally charged atmosphere of a football match, and with the current political climate between Israel and their supporters and members of the Muslim community, then you are simply asking for trouble. WMP may well have been overwhelmed by this level of threat.
Legal Basis
While the Safety Advisory Group has the power to recommend bans for safety, those recommendations must be based on factual evidence. This is why the use of fabricated AI intelligence has now made the ban legally and professionally indefensible. On top of this are the some inaccuracies in the Amsterdam incidents, including the claim that an Amsterdam local was thrown into the canal. It was, in fact, the other way round. But though inaccuracies and misinformation from the Amsterdam incidents have been shown, there is, and was at the time of that Ajax vs Maccabi game, a simplified and biases interpretation of events. The fact is that Maccabi fans, and any Israeli fans known to espouse racist, pro-genocidal views, will be met with violent reactions if and when they attend matches in foreign cities and behave the way they did in Amsterdam. Even if it is only a small number of fans who provoke this reaction. And if this sounds like blaming the victim, then we have reached the crux of the issue, in that you have a distorted view of who is the victim. This is not a case of Jewish football fans being attacked because they are Jewish. What it is, is a case of racist football fans being defended and pandered to on the basis that their country is an ally of ours and is committing atrocities that our government support. It is, no doubt about it, a political football - the UK government placating a foreign government and its supporters at home over the concerns of, and genuine threat from within, a British community.
This genuine threat, by the way, for clarity, is genuine because they themselves, whether rightly or wrongly, would have felt under threat. Reality is not as simple as media and government mouthpieces make it out to be.