The UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee on Sunday published a report criticizing the decision to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending the Europa League match against Aston Villa at Villa Park in Birmingham in November 2025, saying the process was driven by flawed evidence and poor coordination across government.
The committee said West Midlands Police (WMP) relied too heavily on “inaccurate and unverified” material, including information partly based on false AI-generated content that painted a misleading picture of violence surrounding a previous fixture involving Maccabi in Amsterdam.
According to the report, evidence that reinforced pre-existing assumptions about the risk posed by Maccabi fans was accepted readily, while contradictory information from authoritative sources was not given proper weight. The committee said a lack of due diligence meant gaps in evidence-gathering went uncorrected, even after the matter came under parliamentary scrutiny.
The committee also noted that WMP’s evidence-gathering is now subject to an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
Police admitted to using AI-generated sources in report
While the committee found no evidence that the police response was motivated by antisemitism, it concluded that WMP failed to take appropriate steps to engage with Jewish communities in Birmingham, particularly when compared with its consultation with other groups.
In January, West Midlands Chief Constable Craig Guildford apologized after acknowledging a fictitious reference to a West Ham-Maccabi Tel Aviv match in a report about the force's decision had been generated by Microsoft's Copilot AI tool.
He had previously said artificial intelligence was not used in preparing the document.
Mathilda Heller contributed to this report.