Councillors should be barred from sitting on Safety Advisory Groups in light of flawed football ban, MPs say

In the report, which was published on Sunday (22 February), the select committee concluded that councillors had a “disproportionate opportunity” to influence the SAG’s decision-making.

Fans of the Israeli football club were excluded from attending a fixture against Aston Villa at Villa Park in Birmingham in November 2025 due to concerns about their behaviour at previous matches.

While the decision ultimately rested with the city council through the issuance of a safety certificate for the event, the local authority relied on advice from the council’s SAG and West Midlands Police Force.

The Home Affairs Committee launched an inquiry into the controversial decision, which has now found that the police force relied on inaccurate and unverified information about the team’s fans – and that some council members on the SAG panel failed to declare an interest in the decision.

According to the committee report, the panel included two councillors who were involved in promoting a petition to cancel the fixture earlier that year.

One of the two councillors failed to declare an interest during one meeting, and later characterised some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans as “thugs” in her contribution.

In subsequent SAG meetings, all councillors declared their interests, and the councillor who previously failed to declare an interest recused herself on the advice of the SAG.

The committee noted that the city council has commissioned an independent review of its SAG processes, including the presence of councillors on SAGs, “and that in other areas, it is not common practice for councillors to sit on SAGs”.

The select committee found that, while it could not conclude the Safety Advisory Group's decision was made because of political pressures, it also could not conclude "with any confidence" that the decision was not politically influenced.

"It is clear that on this occasion councillors, with a stated political aim, had a disproportionate opportunity to influence Safety Advisory Group decision-making on a deeply divisive political issue," the report said.

It added: "While the presence of elected politicians on Safety Advisory Groups has potential benefits in terms of local representation, it also risks decision-making becoming politically motivated, undermining trust in the process."

As a result of this finding, the committee recommended that the Government take steps to ensure that elected politicians cannot sit on Safety Advisory Groups.

Commenting on the police force’s contributions, the committee said that West Midlands Police "should have been more careful" in its subsequent due diligence and adopted a more robust approach to interrogating its initial findings, as well as being more transparent about the reasons for recommending a ban.

“Instead, evidence was selected partially in order to justify the ban, and West Midlands Police were overly reliant on inaccurate and unverified information about the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans,” it added.

Elsewhere, the report noted that advice from the police force was partially reliant on inaccurate information produced by AI.

It said that the evidence used to assess the threat level posed by Maccabi fans was partly based on false information generated by AI that gave a misleading picture of the violence around their fixture with Ajax in Amsterdam.

The gathering of evidence by WMP to support the decision is currently subject to an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

The committee found no evidence that the WMP response was motivated by antisemitism but said it was “clear” the force failed to take appropriate steps to engage with Jewish communities.

The former Chief Constable, Craig Guildford, retired last month in the face of what he described as the “political and media frenzy” that followed the Maccabi Tel Aviv decision.  

Cllr John Cotton, Leader of Birmingham City Council, said: “The report correctly identifies that West Midlands Police were the key drivers of the decision to ban away fans, but there are also clear actions for the council, which we will undertake.

“In addition to the government review into Safety Advisory Groups, we are also conducting our own independent review which will report back shortly.

“It is crucial that we all work together to rebuild trust, particularly with Jewish communities and I have already met the interim Chief Constable to make that clear. I am encouraged by the initial steps he is taking to rebuild trust and confidence.”

Responding to the report, Acting Chief Constable Scott Green issued a full and sincere apology on behalf of West Midlands Police for the damage caused to the public’s trust and confidence in West Midlands Police.

Green has also asked the force's Temporary Deputy Chief Constable to undertake a voluntary referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in relation to any recordable conduct matters by senior officers in West Midlands Police in relation to these events.

A spokesperson for West Midlands Police said: "We remain fully committed to learning from these events and have already made early efforts through a series of meetings with key local representatives to repair any damage caused by the loss of confidence that the public has in us."

Adam Carey