A police recommendation to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match last year relied on false data generated by Microsoft Copilot AI
The UK government’s belated move to prohibit supporters of an Israeli football club from a Europa League fixture in Birmingham last year merely served to “stoke tensions,” according to a UK parliamentary report released on Sunday.
West Midlands Police (WMP) was found to have used fabricated AI-generated details referencing a non-existent football game when creating a safety evaluation that labeled Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters as high-risk. This information was used to back the force’s suggestion to bar the team’s fans from their November match against Aston Villa.
“The government’s intervention was awkward and came too late, and we dismiss the government’s assertion that it could only step in once a decision had been made,” Home Affairs Committee chair Karen Bradley stated in the report. The final intervention “did little more than fan the flames of tension,” she added.
The report did not exclude the possibility that the initial ban imposed by the local council’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) was “politically motivated.”
“It is evident that on this occasion, councilors with a declared political goal had an excessive chance to sway Safety Advisory Group decision-making on a highly divisive political matter,” the report noted.
Mumtaz Hussain, the councillor representing Birmingham’s Aston ward, participated in the early SAG discussions but had advocated against Israeli fans in her political activities. However, she did not step down due to potential bias until halfway through the process, it said.
The matter of visiting Israeli fans turned into a contentious topic among some Birmingham residents — where around 30% of the population is Muslim — because of pro-Palestinian feelings related to the Gaza conflict.
The police failed to take proper steps to consult local Jewish communities about the potential ban, while actively engaging with other groups, according to the report. WMP seemed to adopt a “that’ll suffice” mindset, believing that “banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans would simplify policing the match,” it stated.
“Rebuilding trust is crucial. West Midlands Police must repair the harm that has been caused,” Bradley said in the report.
In the aftermath of the scandal, West Midlands Police chief Craig Guildford stepped down.
As the fourth-largest police force in the UK by number of personnel, the force has a record of misconduct, with several officers having been convicted in recent years.
In the 1970s and 1980s, WMP’s now notorious Serious Crime Squad left a trail of more than 60 overturned convictions, stemming from the unit’s alleged evidence tampering, fabricated confessions, and use of torture. The squad was disbanded in 1989 following claims of widespread misconduct, though none of its members faced prosecution.