UK: Police Accused of Manufacturing Evidence to Defend Ban on Jewish Football Supporters Following Muslim Pressure

Image: Jihad Watch

Evidence has emerged suggesting that police authorities retrospectively constructed intelligence reports to justify a pre-decided move to ban Israeli supporters from attending an away fixture in Britain. The decision had already been agreed in principle, and the subsequent “intelligence” was compiled only after concerns were raised within the local council about how the ban might be publicly defended.

West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council had jointly settled on operating “on the assumption” that no away fans would be permitted when Maccabi Tel Aviv faced Aston Villa in November. However, leaked minutes from a meeting of the Safety Advisory Group reveal that the police initially supported this restriction without any concrete intelligence. One officer openly acknowledged that the decision rested solely on “professional judgment” and was taken “in the absence of intelligence.”

It was only later—after a council official privately admitted that the authority had been “challenged” over the decision—that the police began assembling what they described as “significant” and “new” intelligence about Maccabi Tel Aviv’s fanbase. According to the leaked records, the council staff member said they had been pressed to obtain supporting information to shield the decision from public criticism or allegations of “anti-Jewish sentiment.”

Following this, West Midlands Police shifted its narrative dramatically, placing heavy emphasis on disorder linked to a Maccabi Tel Aviv match in Amsterdam in November 2024. The force claimed that Israeli supporters had “randomly” pushed innocent civilians into canals and that hundreds of fans, allegedly “linked” to the Israel Defense Forces, carried out attacks on “Muslim communities,” necessitating the deployment of thousands of Dutch police officers.

These allegations were maintained publicly by Chief Constable Craig Guildford even after Dutch authorities rejected them, stating that the claims were either inaccurate, exaggerated, or outright misleading.

Reacting to the revelations, Nick Timothy, Conservative MP for West Suffolk, argued that the newly surfaced documentation demonstrated that West Midlands Police had effectively “invented” intelligence to align with a political decision taken under local pressure. Writing in The Sunday Times, Timothy warned that the issue extended far beyond football.

“Some may care little about foreign football supporters,” he wrote. “But this controversy is far more serious. It raises fundamental questions about whether the police can be trusted to carry out their duties impartially and without political influence—and about who truly holds power in modern, multicultural Britain.”

(This Article was originally published by Jihad Watch)