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West Midlands Police roll back on suggestion Jewish community backed Maccabi ban
Calls for senior officers to go back before MPs after misleading responses to Home Affairs Select Committee
December 7, 2025 13:09
Calls for senior officers to go back before MPs after misleading responses to Home Affairs Select Committee
December 7, 2025 13:09West Midlands Police (WMP) have rolled back on the suggestion by a senior officer to MPs that members of the Jewish community supported a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
There are now calls for force chiefs to go back before the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) amid mounting concerns over the decision-making that led to the Israeli club’s supporters being shut out from last month’s game against Aston Villa.
WMP Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara had said “yes” on Monday when asked by an MP whether Jewish representatives had agreed Maccabi fans should not attend the Europa League tie.
Now the force has issued a statement saying: “In answering these questions, it was never the intention of the officer to imply that there were members of the Jewish community who had explicitly expressed support for the exclusion of Maccabi fans.”
WMP added: “We are anticipating follow-up engagement from the HASC and we will ensure this is clearly articulated as it has been with representatives of the Jewish community.”
Repeated questions have already been raised over the decisions made by the Safety Advisory Group (SAG) in Birmingham with WMP that led to the ban on Maccabi fans from the fixture on November 6 at Villa Park.
The Mayor of Amsterdam has told the JC she “did not recognise” figures used by the force claiming hooliganism by Maccabi fans when the team played Ajax last year.
Conservative MP Nick Timothy has been vocal in his concerns over the policing of the fixture. Last night he said in a post on X: “The police have been caught misleading the Home Affairs Committee about this, consulting the Jewish community, and various claims they made about intelligence from the Dutch police. They must be recalled to the Committee.”
During the hearing on Monday, Conservative MP Karen Bradley, the chair of the committee, had asked O’Hara: “Were members of the communities saying that they did not want the Maccabi fans there, and did that include any Jewish representatives?”
After he replied “yes”, Bradley immediately followed up, asking: “So there were Jewish community representatives who said that they did not want the Maccabi fans there?”
O’Hara responded: “Feedback was documented within the community impact assessment that was clear that there were a range of faiths, backgrounds and ethnicities that were very concerned about this fixture.”
Bradley came back asking using O’Hara’s words, saying: “‘A range of’, but were there Jewish – "
O’Hara broke in saying: “Yes,” and adding “It was documented within the CIA [community impact assessment] from the beginning of September,” before the discussion moved on.
Last week, a Maccabi fan who was injured as one of the dozens of victims of the ‘Jew hunt’ in Amsterdam told the JC of his shock at learning that police in Britain had portrayed the club’s supporters as the aggressors.
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