Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban ‘not needed’ in Manchester, says GMP Chief after Villa Park row

Speaking with Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Greater Manchester Police chief constable Sir Stephen Watson suggested he would have allowed fans to attend the Birmingham football clash on his watch.

"I think banning generally is problematic both practically and tactically," he suggested when pushed by Nick on the subject of barring travelling fans from the game.

"For the most part, we would simply police the match in accordance with the intelligence picture."

"That is to say, if there was good intelligence, as there frequently is, that there was a problematic crowd, we would scale up our resourcing and we would place it accordingly."

Mr Watson's comments come after the Israeli team's fans were banned from attending the Villa Park clash last month over what police and the government labelled "safety fears".

"So the game would go on? The fans would be able to go and watch the game go on?" pushed Nick.

"That would be our default position," admitted the Chief Constable.

It comes after the decision to ban travelling Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the Birmingham clash on November 6 was branded the "wrong decision" by the chief of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Prior to the ban, many had raised concerns both about the previous behaviour of Maccabi fans, who have been involved in several incidents in recent years - particularly given tensions surrounding the ongoing war in Gaza.

A safety advisory group (SAG) had recommended that Maccabi fans should be banned from attending the fixture on the advice of the police.

The ban drew criticism, with the Prime Minister going on to suggest the move had been the "wrong decision".

The decision was met with fury by the government, which actively sought to have the ban overturned in the wake of the news.

The comments come just hours after West Midlands Police was forced to defend itself amid claims a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was implemented following "false intelligence".

Supporters of the Israeli club were barred from the Europa League fixture amid claims a "section" of Maccabi's fanbase was engaged in "quite significant levels of hooliganism".

According to The Sunday Times, police claimed that when Maccabi played Ajax in Amsterdam last year, Israeli fans threw "innocent members of the public into the river" in a confidential dossier.

It is also said to have suggested that between 500 and 600 supporters had "intentionally targeted Muslim communities" during the clash.

The report also suggested that around 5,000 Dutch police officers had been deployed.

But police in the Netherlands questioned the claims, describing the information cited by its British officers as "not true".