UK regional police chief retires over ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans

Craig Guildford to step down immediately, after home secretary said she had lost confidence in him due to his handling of the affair

The chief constable of Britain’s West Midlands Police force said he would retire immediately on Friday, after being heavily criticized over a decision to ban soccer fans of Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending a game at Aston Villa last year.

The West Midlands force, which covers Birmingham in central England and is one of Britain’s biggest, recommended that the Israeli fans should not be allowed to attend a Europa League match on November 6 because of security concerns.

The decision caused a diplomatic dispute, coming shortly after an antisemitic attack that killed two men at a synagogue in northwest England, and when tensions were high because of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

A report by the police watchdog this week found there had been a number of mistakes made by the West Midlands force, including basing its decision on a match which never took place and failing to communicate with the local Jewish community.

Subsequently, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she no longer had confidence in the force’s chief constable, Craig Guildford, and on Friday he said he would retire with immediate effect.

“I have come to the conclusion that the political and media frenzy around myself and my position has become detrimental to all the great work undertaken by my officers and staff in serving communities across the West Midlands,” he said in a statement.

The decision to ban Israeli fans was condemned by both the British and Israeli governments. Jewish community leaders accused the force of misrepresenting intelligence and undermining public confidence.

Mahmood said Guildford had done the right thing.

“The findings of the Chief Inspector were damning. They set out a catalogue of failings that have harmed trust in West Midlands Police,” she said in a statement

The game in November went ahead without major disruptions, though police made 11 arrests when pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel supporters demonstrated outside the stadium.

The police classified the match in Birmingham in November as “high risk,” citing previous Maccabi games, including a Europa League encounter in Amsterdam, which saw clashes between locals and Israeli fans in which Dutch police have said the Israelis were targeted.

In an intelligence report for the game, police cited a match between West Ham and Maccabi Tel Aviv that never took place.

When questioned about this by lawmakers earlier this month, Guildford insisted that the error was the result of a Google search and that the force had not used artificial intelligence in its research.

However, in a letter to MPs on Wednesday, Guildford admitted that the erroneous information was due to the use of Microsoft Copilot, an AI chatbot.

“I would like to offer my profound apology to the committee for this error,” Guildford said, adding that there was “no intention to mislead the committee.”

Dame Karen Bradley, chair of parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee, had last week accused the local police force of “scraping” to find a reason to justify the ban.

That came after UK media reported in December that Dutch police also disputed evidence cited by the West Midlands force to justify the ban.

UK police claimed they were told that Maccabi fans were behind several violent incidents during the 2024 Amsterdam clashes — but that intelligence was partly contradicted by Dutch politicians and police.