Previously we discussed BBC News website and BBC Sport coverage of a ban on Israeli football fans attending a Europa League game in Birmingham in November 2025, much of which included distorted portrayals of events around the time of a football match in Amsterdam a year earlier.
BIRMINGHAM ISRAELI FANS BAN AND BBC ‘PERMANENT PUBLIC RECORD’
As noted, multiple BBC reports uncritically promoting a highly problematic West Midlands Police “intelligence report” that was supposedly based on information provided by the Dutch police – but has been dismissed as inaccurate by that body and others in the Netherlands – remain online in their original form.
Early on January 6th, the BBC News website published a report by political correspondent Jack Fenwick and political editor Chris Mason titled “West Midlands police to be questioned over Israeli football fan ban” in which readers are told that:
“The leaders of West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council will be grilled by MPs later over a decision not to allow Israeli football fans to attend a match in the city last year. […]
BBC News has obtained a letter from the Dutch police inspectorate in December, which appears to contradict claims made by West Midlands Police about Maccabi fans’ previous behaviour, which were used to justify the ban.”
The report later continues:
“The row over why away fans were banned has been ongoing since October, when the Safety Advisory Group, which includes the council, the club and police, made the decision because of what they said were safety concerns.
West Midlands Police have repeatedly mentioned the unrest surrounding a Maccabi match in Amsterdam in November 2024, as part of the justification for the ban.
During meetings of the safety group in October, they claimed that 500-600 Maccabi fans had targeted Muslim communities the night before the Amsterdam fixture, saying there had been “serious assaults including throwing random members of the public” into a river.
They also claimed that 5,000 officers were needed to deal with the unrest in Amsterdam, after previously saying that the figure was 1,200.
In November, a representative for the police force in Amsterdam said they did not recognise the claims.
Last month, West Midlands Police hit back when a senior officer suggested that Dutch police had only questioned the claims because of political pressure.
But a body that oversees the Dutch police has now backed up the Amsterdam officers’ account of what happened.
In a letter seen by BBC News, the Dutch Inspector General, Liesbeth Huijzer, said “we do not see any new facts or circumstances that would warrant revising these findings”.”
Later the same day, the BBC News website reported on the Home Affairs Committee’s “Maccabi Tel Aviv policing evidence session” in an article that was originally headlined “MP’s [sic] probe West Midlands Police over decision to ban Maccabi fans” and credited to Shehnaz Khan. Curiously, the report at that URL now goes under the title “No conspiracy over Israeli football fans ban, West Midlands Police say” and is uncredited. It opens by linking to the one published earlier and telling readers that:
“West Midlands Police said there was “no conspiracy” as they reiterated a decision to ban Israeli football fans from attending a match in Birmingham was “based on safety”. […]
West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford said he stood by the accuracy of intelligence after a letter from Dutch police appeared to contradict claims police made about Maccabi fans’ previous behaviour, which were used to justify the ban.”
Only in paragraph twenty of that report do readers find the following cursory portrayal of a part of the story that was not communicated to members of the parliamentary committee during the previous session in December:
“The committee heard police thought “vigilante groups” from the local community posed a threat to Maccabi fans when it decided to ban them from the game.
“We got a lot of information or intelligence to suggest that people were going to actively seek out Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and would seek violence towards them,” O’Hara added.”
While the BBC has nothing more to tell its audiences about those “vigilante groups”, the Jewish News was able to report that:
“West Midlands Police chiefs have infuriated a parliamentary committee by failing to disclose to MPs that intelligence gained in September last year showed that “elements” of the local community in the region wanted to “arm themselves” and target visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. […]
Minutes and documents, previously denied a public airing, were published under Freedom of Information and via MPs in the past few days.
Among them was a rapid review of the West Midlands force’s recommendation by another force’s chief constable.
It confirmed that from as early as September 5 police had picked up intelligence that “elements of the community in the West Midlands (were) wanting to ‘arm’ themselves” in connection to the match.
By September 18, they had ‘high confidence intelligence regarding a serious threat’. Neither threat is detailed in the publicly released documents. […]
Responding to a question from Jewish Labour MP Peter Prinsley on why the information about armed gangs had only just come to light, Guildford told MPs the reason he didn’t publicly reveal that local armed thugs were planning to attack Israeli fans was because he “wasn’t asked about it”.
Later, Birmingham City Council’s Labour leader John Cotton also confirmed to MPs that he had not been informed of the intelligence suggesting armed gangs were planned attacks on Israelis in the city.”
The BBC’s report also tells readers that:
“The committee criticised the minutes as giving a “biased picture” of the [SAG] meeting and said it showed pressure coming from two councillors who pressed away fans should not attend the game. […]
The committee also questioned whether it was appropriate for councillors who were “campaigning publicly” to stop the football game in its entirety, to be on the SAG.”
The BBC’s report does not name the two councillors concerned or give any information concerning their prior records and histories of anti-Israel and anti Macabi Tel Aviv campaigning. The Times had already reported on January 4th that at the first of three SAG meetings:
“…Waseem Zaffar, a Labour councillor who has accused Israel of “extremism and terrorism”, lobbied for the Europa League game to be cancelled. He was joined by Mumtaz Hussain, a Liberal Democrat, who had publicly said of the game: “We are the voice of the people. And this is something that a lot of people in Aston do not want.”
The councillors were the only elected representatives present. They had already publicly said they believed a ban was a proportionate response to Israel’s actions in Gaza, which they have said amounts to genocide, but did not recuse themselves.”
The same applies to the final entry on a January 6th BBC News website live page titled “‘No conspiracy here’: Police defend decision to ban Israeli fans from Villa game”.
Notably, that live page makes no mention whatsoever of the part of the story concerning “vigilante groups” that had not previously been disclosed to committee members.
It does however recycle false claims that have already been refuted together with an inaccurate portrayal of the date of the alleged events in November 2024:
As the report by Fenwick and Mason shows, the BBC is fully aware of the fact that the West Midlands Police “intelligence report” was based on inaccurate – and even invented – claims. Nevertheless, the corporation displays minimal interest in providing its audiences with the full information about additional and no less relevant aspects of the story, including the campaigning local councillors and the local groups planning attacks on Israeli football fans.
Instead, it continues to promote claims such as “throwing random members of the public into a river” even though they have been known for many months to be false.
Not only does that editorial policy prevent BBC audiences from understanding exactly what happened (and what did not) in Amsterdam in November 2024, how and why the Birmingham SAG reached its decisions and the real reason why Israeli football fans were banned from attending a game in the UK – it also compromises the ability of the BBC’s funding public to make up their own minds about the performance of their second largest city’s police force.
Related Articles:
BBC PROMOTES A NARRATIVE USING MISLEADING PORTRAYALS OF AMSTERDAM ATTACKS
BBC NEWS AND BBC SPORT FRAMING OF THE BIRMINGHAM FOOTBALL MATCH STORY – PART ONE
BBC NEWS AND BBC SPORT FRAMING OF THE BIRMINGHAM FOOTBALL MATCH STORY – PART TWO
BIRMINGHAM ISRAELI FANS BAN AND BBC ‘PERMANENT PUBLIC RECORD’
