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Low reported severity

Birmingham: police report to a safety advisory group contained a fixture that never happened, attributed to Microsoft Copilot, during the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fan restriction

On 24 October 2025 West Midlands Police gave Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group a written report that cited a Maccabi Tel Aviv v West Ham match on 9 November 2023 that never took place. The group had advised on 16 October that Aston Villa give no tickets to Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters for the 6 November 2025 match. In January 2026 the Chief Constable said the error arose from use of Microsoft Copilot, after earlier telling MPs it came from a Google search. The inspectorate found the ban advice predated the report and said confirmation bias influenced the force's assessments to the group. The sources do not show the Copilot output caused the ban.

AI system
Microsoft Copilot (reported)
Microsoft
Occurred
24 Oct 2025
Reported
14 January 2026
Event location
United Kingdom
What the AI did
Made a claim about the person
Reported harm
Other Material Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Public services · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources
8 claims: 1 documented, 2 corroborated, 5 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

AI system as recorded: Microsoft Copilot (reported by West Midlands Police personnel; query and output not inspected)

Reported harm

The inspectorate letter and Aston Villa's statement report that Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were barred from attending the 6 November 2025 match. The sources read do not establish that the AI output caused the restriction.

What remains unknown

  • The inspectorate letter says some inaccuracies in the 24 October report had appeared earlier in the 10 October 2025 letter from the gold commander and does not state whether the West Ham statement was one of them. It does not state when the Copilot search was done or what the report said happened at the claimed fixture. The incident date is the report date, not the search date. The West Ham item concerns the club's fixture history, and the report as a whole is described as imbalanced about the previous behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
  • Whether the Safety Advisory Group changed or confirmed its advice at the 24 October 2025 meeting is not stated in the inspected sources.
  • The Copilot query, its output and how the false fixture entered the report were not inspected. The inspectorate heard contradictory evidence from the Chief Constable and another interviewee.
  • How many supporters intended to attend, held tickets or were otherwise affected is not stated.
  • The inspectorate letter is preliminary and a final report was still to come. The final findings were not inspected.
  • Later events such as any resignation or watchdog referral appear only as related-article headlines on the Guardian page and are not cited.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. A West Midlands Police interviewee told the inspectorate the false fixture came from a Microsoft Copilot search, and the Chief Constable later said the same. Both accounts come from the force, and the Copilot query and output were not inspected.

8 claims: 1 documented, 2 corroborated, 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Corroborated A written West Midlands Police report given to Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group for its 24 October 2025 meeting stated that Maccabi Tel Aviv's most recent UK match was against West Ham United on 9 November 2023, and no such fixture existed. The Chief Constable later acknowledged that a fictitious match between the two clubs had been included in police intelligence.

Causal attribution. The inspectorate review of the report and the Chief Constable's admission of the error (as relayed by the Guardian) are separate chains. The Guardian describes the fictitious match as included in police intelligence and does not name the 24 October report. The link to the report rests on the inspectorate letter. The letter is preliminary, and the inspectorate says its views may develop or change.

Reported The erroneous West Ham statement is attributed by a West Midlands Police interviewee and by the Chief Constable to a Microsoft Copilot search. The Chief Constable had earlier told the inspectorate and MPs that the force did not use AI.

Causal attribution. Both attributions come from West Midlands Police personnel, so they are one chain. The inspectorate did not inspect the Copilot query or output. The interviewee described the error as an AI hallucination.

Reported The Chief Constable had told MPs the mistake was made by one individual doing one Google search, and in an email to the Home Affairs Committee published on 14 January 2026 apologised for giving incorrect evidence.

Causal attribution. The Chief Constable's own account of the evidence given, relayed by the Guardian.

Corroborated On 16 October 2025 the Safety Advisory Group advised Aston Villa to reduce to zero the ticket allocation for Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters, and the club confirmed that no away fans could attend the 6 November 2025 match.

Causal attribution. The restriction is the Safety Advisory Group's advice. The inspectorate letter and the Aston Villa statement (relayed by Al Jazeera) are separate chains.

  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    the Chair of the SAG wrote to the Chief Operating Officer of Aston Villa FC, advising that the club should reduce to zero the ticket allocation to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
  • aljazeera.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    no away fans may attend the UEFA Europa League match with Maccabi Tel Aviv
Reported The inspectorate states that the original decision to restrict away-fan tickets was made during the 7 and 16 October oral briefings. It says the 16 October briefing did not repeat the inaccuracies of the 10 October letter or introduce those of the 24 October report, and that the 7 October briefing was not materially inaccurate apart from one discrepancy. It adds that those inaccuracies "would of course have been in the gold and silver commanders’ minds when they decided to recommend the force’s preferred tactical option". The Chair of the Safety Advisory Group said the group would rely on the 24 October report as a wholly fresh consideration of the issue.

Causal attribution. The inspectorate places the ban advice before the 24 October report. The sources inspected do not establish which inaccuracies reached the commanders before the 16 October advice, whether the Safety Advisory Group changed its advice on 24 October, or that the Copilot output caused the ban.

  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The original decision to restrict to zero the ticket allocation for away fans was made during those oral briefings.
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The force’s 16 October 2025 oral briefing didn’t repeat the inaccuracies of the 10 October 2025 letter
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    I am satisfied that the silver commander’s initial oral briefing to the SAG wasn’t materially inaccurate.
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    But those inaccuracies would of course have been in the gold and silver commanders’ minds when they decided to recommend the force’s preferred tactical option.
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The Chair stated that the SAG would rely on that report as “a wholly fresh consideration of the issue”.
Reported The inspectorate concluded that confirmation bias about the behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans influenced the content and strength of the force's assessments to the group and found no evidence that antisemitism played a part in the force's preferred option.

Causal attribution. The inspectorate's preliminary view. It says confirmation bias influenced the content and strength of the force's assessments and played a part in how the force reached its preferred option. Its finding on the Copilot attribution is limited to recording the interviewee's account.

  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    confirmation bias, in relation to the anticipated behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and the potential disorder their presence might cause, influenced both the content and strength of assessments WMP gave to the SAG.
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    I have found no evidence to support a view that antisemitism played any part in WMP stating that its preferred tactical option was to reduce to zero the ticket allocation to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
Reported Maccabi Tel Aviv announced it would decline any away ticket allocation for the match.

Causal attribution. The club's own statement. It gave safety concerns as its reason.

Documented The Home Secretary commissioned an inspection on 31 October 2025 of police contributions to safety advisory groups, and the inspectorate reported its preliminary views on the Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture on 14 January 2026.

Causal attribution. The letter documents its own date and status.

Sources

4 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: United Kingdom. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The inspectorate publication applies to England and Wales and concerns Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group and West Midlands Police. The supporters' countries of residence are not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: The inspectorate letter and the Guardian article were read in full, and the Aston Villa and club statements were read via Al Jazeera and Malay Mail. The AI attribution rests on West Midlands Police accounts. The letter dates the ban advice before the report and does not attribute the ban to the AI output, and the record says so.

People reported harmed in this case

Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

The number of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters who intended to travel or held ticket entitlements is not stated in the inspected sources, so numeric zero placeholders are used.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Birmingham: police report to a safety advisory group contained a fixture that never happened, attributed to Microsoft Copilot, during the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fan restriction. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-birmingham-maccabi-tel-aviv-away-fan-ban-police-report-false-match-attributed-to-copilot

BibTeX

@misc{2025_birmingham_maccabi_tel_aviv_away_fan_ban_police_report_false_match_attributed_to_copilot,
  title = {Birmingham: police report to a safety advisory group contained a fixture that never happened, attributed to Microsoft Copilot, during the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fan restriction},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-birmingham-maccabi-tel-aviv-away-fan-ban-police-report-false-match-attributed-to-copilot}
}

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