A police chief faces pressure to resign over the ban on Israeli supporters attending a football match in Birmingham after being accused of wrongly appearing to suggest that Jewish leaders were consulted.
Chief Constable Craig Guildford, of West Midlands police, is being recalled by the Commons home affairs select committee on Tuesday to answer further questions on an allegedly antisemitic ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending its Europa League game against Aston Villa in November.
A shadow minister has asked how Guildford can stay in his role. Andy Cooke, HM chief inspector of constabulary, has been asked by Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, to urgently review the ban and the use of a “safety community group” of local police and government officials that make such decisions.
Chief Constable Craig Guildford
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Guildford wrote to the committee last month, stating: “We engaged with key community figures such as the chair of Birmingham and West Midlands Jewish Community, Ruth Jacobs.”
He said there was “no documented feedback from Jewish representatives prior to the decision being communicated” in support of the ban but, since then, members of the community had offered their support “in confidence”.
Jacobs has written to Karen Bradley, the committee chairwoman, and Sarah Jones, the policing minister, saying that she was not consulted until after the ban was announced in October and she was unaware of any other Jewish representatives being approached.
Eight Muslim groups, including three who have been accused of hosting antisemitic preachers, were consulted before the ban was imposed on public safety grounds.
Jacobs said: “It is terribly unfortunate the way this has been portrayed. We were not aware of this ban until after it was imposed.”
Aston Villa fans next to the empty away end
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Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister, questioned whether Guildford could continue in his role. “What we have seen at West Midlands police is a serious breakdown of leadership and accountability,” she said in the House of Commons on Monday. “It is simply extraordinary that the force made up ‘intelligence’ and made false public statements. The chief constable has serious questions to answer, and if he cannot satisfactorily answer them, he must resign.”
She said that a “remarkable” investigation by The Sunday Times revealed that police “retrospectively” created a rationale and “false evidence to justify their predetermined decision to ban fans from the world’s only Jewish state from going to a football match in Britain’s second city”. She added: “How can he continue in his role?”
Jones said: “The prime minister, the home secretary and the whole government has been very clear that we believe that the wrong decision was made. We have asked the inspector to look at what happened in two parts. One is what happened in particular around this match itself and a wider look at the police role when it comes to safety advisory groups and how these decisions are made.”
The Independent Office for Police Conduct said it would assess the chief constable’s evidence to the committee and it had written to the West Midlands force and the local police and crime commissioner “to seek assurances over what assessments they have made of any conduct”.
MPs will also question Chief Constable Mark Roberts, head of the football policing unit, and John Cotton, the Labour leader of Birmingham city council.
Two anti-Israel Birmingham councillors, Waseem Zaffar and Mumtaz Hussain, told the first meeting of the safety advisory group that everyone backed the ban on Maccabi supporters and the group agreed that there would be a “presumption” of no away fans.
Police subsequently upgraded the perceived threat to Muslims from Israeli fans from medium to high, while downgrading the perceived threat to Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from high to medium before the final meeting 16 days later.
The West Midlands force has also been accused of exaggerating the disorder in Amsterdam when Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax in November 2024 to justify the ban.
Maccabi supporters in Amsterdam in November 2024
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Nick Timothy, a Conservative MP and an Aston Villa fan, said: “Every day more information comes to light that shows the police fixed their ‘intelligence’ to justify a predetermined decision to ban Israeli fans from Villa Park. They did so at the behest of Islamist thugs and agitators. We need the police to do their work without fear or favour, not those who want to impose their hateful ideology on the rest of us.”
The Commons committee will publish a “peer view” commissioned by Guildford involving the football policing unit and the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which West Midlands police claims “fully endorsed the force’s approach and decision-making”.
Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, said: “We have not banned fans like this before in England. This applied not only to fans from Israel but British citizens who support Maccabi and Israeli citizens living in the UK.” Mann said the force had not explained why it could not use standard reasons for separating supporters, such as requiring away fans to travel to the stadium in designated coaches.
When approached over the weekend for comment on the new documents, West Midlands police said it did not “have any more updates”.
The council did not respond to a request for comment.