Femke Halsema rejects key claims attributed to Dutch authorities by West Midlands Police about what happened during the Maccabi-Ajax match
November 27, 2025 12:49
Amsterdam’s mayor has said she “doesn’t recognise the figure” of 600 Maccabi hooligans attributed to the Dutch authorities by West Midlands Police to justify the force’s ban on the Israeli club’s fans.
Femke Halsema also rejected the English force’s claim that 5,000 Dutch police were deployed to quell violence during the Maccabi match against Ajax in November 2024.
West Midlands Police claimed that the decision to exclude Israeli fans earlier this month was “the most effective opportunity to minimise risk to the public”.
In a letter to the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, West Midlands Police had stated: “Intelligence indicated that, on the day preceding the fixture, between 500 and 600 Maccabi fans deliberately targeted Muslim communities, committing hate-motivated offences including serious assaults on Muslim taxi drivers, singing hate fuelled songs and tearing down Palestinian flags.
“Dutch police described the Maccabi Tel Aviv risk group as highly organised and experienced in violent confrontation. On match day, there were widespread incidents of vandalism, assaults, and running street battles. The Dutch police response saw 5,000 officers deployed over a number of days and mass arrests were made from both sides. Several officers were injured during the sustained confrontation.”
However, spokesperson for Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema told the JC: “I don’t recognise these figures.”
Instead she backed the official “Statement of Facts” (Feitenrelaas) compiled by Amsterdam Police Chief Peter Holla and Chief Prosecutor René de Beukelaer and presented to the Amsterdam municipality as an authoritative source of information on what happened in Amsterdam.
The JC obtained a copy of the report, which said that ahead of the fixture, authorities in the Netherlands had noted that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans “do not have a violent reputation”.
Moreover, despite the aggressive behaviour of a small minority of Maccabi supporters in Amsterdam, authorities found that it was the Israeli fans who were the target of “groups that are looking for a confrontation with Maccabi supporters” and, of the 59 arrests that were made, just 10 were Israeli and the remainder Dutch.
West Midlands Police’s figures have also been disputed by Sebastiaan Meijer, a spokesman for the Amsterdam division of the Dutch Police.
He told the Sunday Times: “In total we came to 1,200, in different shifts, though … I read 5,000 police. That number is so not true”. He added that there was no evidence that 600 Maccabi fans “deliberately targeted” Muslims.
In a debate in Parliament on Monday, MPs called on West Midlands Police to provide greater transparency and shadow home secretary Chris Philp said that the chief constable of West Midlands police should resign “unless they have a good explanation” for providing what appeared to be “false information”.
In a major intervention on Tuesday, the head of another police force appeared to question the operational decisions of West Midlands Police.
Sir Stephen Watson, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, told broadcaster Nick Ferrari that it was his force’s “default position” to try and allow away fans to attend fixtures and to scale up their resources depending on whether the travelling supporters were a “problematic crowd”.
West Midlands Police have been contacted for comment.
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