West Midlands police chief allowed to retire after Maccabi Tel Aviv match scandal

The Chief Constable of West Midlands police has been allowed to retire instead of being sacked, 48 hours after the Home Secretary said she had lost confidence in him over the force’s handling of evidence ahead of a football match between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv last year.

Craig Guildford, who has served as Chief Constable since December 2022, was widely blamed after serious questions emerged relating to evidence used by WM Police to justify banning all Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from November’s Europa League tie. On Wednesday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she had lost confidence in the senior police boss after a “damning” watchdog review showed “confirmation bias” and a “failure of leadership” in West Midlands Police.

The decision to ban all fans of the Israeli club from attending the match at Villa Park was made by Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG), led by West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council, and was largely based on a WM police report relating to clashes which had happened in Amsterdam in 2024 when Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax. However, that report was subsequently found to contain serious discrepancies compared with what police in Amsterdam said had happened, and in one case was found to have relied on an AI tool which hallucinated another Maccabi Tel Aviv match which had never taken place.

Guildford had given evidence on several occasions to Parliament’s Home Affairs select committee, with many of its MPs increasingly frustrated by what they felt was significant obfuscation by senior members of the force. On Wednesday, after Mahmood, an MP for a Birmingham constituency, officially declared she had no confidence in Guildford, a number of her senior Cabinet colleagues – including Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy – called for him to go. Mahmood also announced that she would be moving to restore Ministerial power to sack police chiefs when deemed necessary – a power which had previously been removed by the then-Conservative government in 2011.

There were widespread concerns that the decision of the Birmingham SAG, as well as the drafting of the police report, had been heavily influenced by local pressure from elements within the city’s Muslim community. It emerged that local police had been aware of efforts to track Maccabi Tel Aviv players while they were in the city, but that officers reporting on the situation around the game had been advised to avoid making that information public for fear of further inflaming the situation.

The response from the Jewish community in the wake of Guildford’s retirement decision, announced by West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster on Friday, was mixed.

Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies, said: “the Home Secretary and politicians across all the main parties for the clear stance they have taken on this matter, including the work of the Home Affairs Select Committee and HMIC in getting to the facts. After this debacle, we support proposals for the power to sack Chief Constables to be restored to the Home Secretary.

“Strong working relationships with the police are vital to the security of Jewish communities locally and nationally. We are ready to work with the local Jewish community, the Chief Constable’s successors, and the government, to restore confidence that this episode has so seriously eroded.”

However, the Campaign Against Antisemitism described this as “a test case for the British state”, saying that “Under Craig Guildford’s leadership, West Midlands Police lied and obfuscated, victim-blaming Jews instead of taking on the Islamists. His retirement, after the pitiful failure of West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster to sack him, should result in the resignation of Mr Foster as well. In any case, Mr Guildford’s must not be the last departure from among the force’s leadership, and obviously he cannot be replaced by another senior figure implicated in the same scandal.

“The disgraceful conduct of Mr Guildford and Mr Foster shows who really rules the roost in local affairs in Birmingham. Focus must now turn to the Islamists who browbeat the police into carrying out their wishes to ban Jews: which individuals, groups and radical mosques participated in the campaign? What influence have they amassed over the local council, safety advisory group and police? What action, if any, has the Charity Commission taken against religious organisations with charitable status hosting extremist preachers? What action if any have the police taken against those who conspired to commit violence against Jewish fans and Israeli players?”

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood responded to the news of Guildford’s retirement with a statement saying that the findings of a report into the WM Police conduct “were damning. They set out a catalogue of failings that have harmed trust in West Midlands Police. By stepping down, Craig Guildford has done the right thing today.”

Acknowledging his years of service as well as the work of the WM police force, she said that “today marks a crucial first step to rebuilding trust and confidence in the force amongst all the communities they serve.”

However, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said that “Craig Guildford disgraced himself and his force. Allowing Islamists to force the banning of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and then fabricating evidence to pretend the ban was because of the Maccabi fans own behaviour was appalling.”

Describing that Guildford’s move to retire was “simply not good enough”, Philp said the outgoing Chief constable “should now face gross misconduct proceedings through an IOPC investigation – which can continue even after retirement or resignation. I will now be writing to the IOPC to call for this.”