UK police used false claims to ban Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from soccer match - report
Dutch police challenge the claims used by the British West Midlands police force to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from its Soccer match against Aston Villa.
By Jerusalem Post Staff, November 23, 2025
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-874861
British police used false claims to ban Israeli supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending a soccer match against UK team Aston Villa earlier in November, The Sunday Times reported, citing the national police force of the Netherlands.
As per the report, a confidential report on violent riots during and after Maccabi Tel Aviv's match in Amsterdam last year, used by West Midlands Police to justify its ban of Israeli fans, found that some 500-600 Maccabi fans were “intentionally targeting Muslim communities,” and that they were “throwing innocent members of the public into the river,” necessitating the deployment of some 5,000 officers.
The report also accused "over 200" Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were "linked to the IDF," adding that the fans were "highly organized, skilled fighters," as per the Sunday Times, who cited Amsterdam's police spokesman Sebastiaan Meijer as saying his force "would never have had such intelligence and that Israel had a policy of conscription, making the claim meaningless," as per the report.
Furthermore, Meijeer noted that the only case he could recall of "throwing innocent members of the public into the river" was one where a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan was filmed being told he can only leave the river on the condition he said “Free Palestine.”
Inaccurate or untrue statements: Dutch authorities
Dutch local police described the information in the West Midlands Police's report as inaccurate, with none of the claims appearing in an investigation conducted by the Dutch justice and security ministry in May.
Superintendent Jack Hadley relayed the disputed claims in a closed-door meeting with Birmingham's Jewish community, according to the Times. After several days, the West Midlands police force responded, saying its “evaluation had public safety at its heart."
"We met with Dutch police on October 1, where information relating to that 2024 fixture was shared with us," before claiming that some Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters, known as the Maccabi Fanatics, "posed a credible threat to public safety."
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