West Midlands Police’s justification of banning Maccabi fans ‘blown apart’, claims senior Tory MP

The Birmingham-born MP and Aston Villa fan noted that police in Amsterdam had disputed WMP’s claim that 5,000 police officers were required to police Maccabi fans in Amsterdam.

His video included testimony from Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism “and an expert on football hooliganism”, who told the committee that WMP’s intelligence report “simply doesn't match the Amsterdam reports”, adding: “I think the evidence has been fitted to try and get a solution.”

Despite WMP’s denials, Timothy claimed that the force’s story didn’t add up.

The Tory MP continued: “At the select committee, the chief constable admitted that the decision to ban the Israeli Jewish fans came from information provided only from the Dutch police, but asked why the Dutch have since contradicted what West Midlands Police say, West Midlands Police accused the Dutch of changing their tune for political purposes.”

He also included a clip of O’Hara saying that the police in Amsterdam were “under a lot of pressure, in their words from City Hall”.

“This is a staggering accusation”, said Timothy. “They're saying that the Dutch police misled their own people in public statements last year. They're saying that the Dutch police misled their own justice and security inspectorate, which produced a report on the match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

"And they're saying the Dutch police misled the Sunday Times when they said that the claims made by West Midlands Police were obviously inaccurate. They're saying that the mayor of Amsterdam isn't telling the truth and that even the king of the Netherlands got it wrong”.

The MP for West Suffolk also raised the point that WMP admitted that their intelligence report included a reference to a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham United that never happened.

He went on to say that the force “failed to defend the inaccuracies in their intelligence report, and they failed to prove that the information wasn't gathered to fit the predetermined decision to ban Israeli fans from the game”.

Though the Villa-supporting parliamentarian said he believed that WMP were “worried about the serious risk of disorder”, he also added that they “didn't want to admit that they were worried about their inability to police the Islamist thugs and agitators who want to control our streets. And they don't want to admit that politics driven by the Gaza independent MP, and local councillors influenced the decision”.

Local MP Ayoub Khan, encouraged a boycott of Maccabi Tel Aviv, praised the appearance of West Midlands Police chiefs at the select committee.

“Huge respect to the Chief Constable and senior West Midlands Police officers for their independent, impartial stance today — no political pressure, just public safety first. B’ham [sic] politicians: stand with this decision. If you don’t, I will remind at elections,” he wrote in a post on X.

In another post, he claimed that “despite misleading media narratives, there was a coordinated, MILITARISTIC MUSLIM HUNT in Amsterdam by organised Maccabi racist thugs the night before the game!”.

His statement is disputed by Dutch police accounts and the official statement of facts (feitenrelaas) by Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla and Chief Prosecutor René de Beukelaer, which the JC revealed last month.

By contrast, at a trial in Holland, it was revealed that the assaults on Maccabi fans had been planned in WhatsApp messages in which participants talked of a “Jew hunt”.