LONDON (AP) — The chief of the British police force that recommended that fans from Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv be banned from attending a football match against English Premier League side Aston Villa in Birmingham last year retired Friday following criticism of that decision.
Craig Guildford, the chief constable of West Midlands Police, will step down with immediate effect as the head of the force following mounting pressure for him to quit
over the controversy. The development was announced by the locally elected police and crime commissioner Simon Foster outside police headquarters in Birmingham.
Guildford's position has been precarious since Wednesday's publication of a report into the decision to ban Maccabi fans from attending the match at Villa Park on Nov. 6. The report found the decision last year overstated the threat posed by Maccabi fans and understated the risk to them.
Following its publication, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she had lost confidence in Guildford and urged him to stand down.
Mahmood said she didn’t have the power to fire Guildford as a result of a policy change by the previous Conservative government in 2011, but she was looking to reinstate that power to home secretaries. Currently, locally elected police and crime commissioners have that power.
The ban came at a time of heightened concerns about antisemitism in Britain following a deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue and calls from Palestinians and their supporters for a sports boycott of Israel over the war with Hamas in Gaza.
West Midlands Police said at the time it had deemed the match to be high risk “based on current intelligence and previous incidents,” including violence and hate crimes that took place when Maccabi played Ajax in Amsterdam last season.
