Craig Guildford is to retire as chief constable of West Midlands police, the Guardian understands.
His departure comes after an official inquiry found his force used “exaggerated and untrue” intelligence to justify a ban on fans of an Israeli football team.
The decision is scheduled to be officially announced at 4pm on Friday by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster.
The pressure on one of Britain’s most senior chief constables has been intense after the basis for his force’s claims about the ban unravelled and the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said she had no confidence in him.
In the end Guildford decided the pressure was too much. He had wanted to wait until at least 27 January, when his police and crime commissioner had called a meeting where the chief constable would be publicly questioned. He has served 32 years as an officer and will retire on Friday, and be entitled to his full pension.
Guildford, 52, felt the intense row and criticism was a distraction unlikely to die down or go away. The fallout led some of his fellow chief constables to believe he should go and that by staying he was damaging the reputation of policing nationally and its standing with the public.
Foster accepted his decision, made on Friday.
Guildford had been clinging on to his job, which has a salary of more than £220,000 a year, despite criticism from the prime minister, the home secretary, other senior ministers and the leader of the Conservatives.
An inquiry by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary criticised West Midlands police for its mishandling of intelligence used to justify the ban, in a report that the home secretary described as “devastating”.
Mahmood said the blame for failings detailed in the report by the chief inspector of constabulary, Andy Cooke, and Guildford’s continued insistence his force was right, meant Guildford had to go.
She said: “Faced by a game of such importance, the chief constable of the force, Craig Guildford, should have ensured more professional and thorough work was done. As Sir Andy himself says, the ‘shortcomings’ detailed in his report are, and I quote, ‘symptomatic of a force not applying the necessary strategic oversight and not paying enough attention to important matters of detail, including at the most senior levels’.
“The ultimate responsibility for the force’s failure to discharge its duties on a matter of such national importance rests with the chief constable, and it is for that reason that I must declare today that the chief constable of West Midlands police no longer has my confidence.”
Guildford testified twice before MPs on the home affairs committee, with each appearance prompting further criticism. In the first hearing, he admitted part of a force dossier contained a reference to a Maccabi game against West Ham that never happened, and it was gathered erroneously using artificial intelligence.
Foster will now have to find a new chief constable for the Birmingham-headquartered force. Guildford was chief of West Midlands police from 2022 and Foster had praised him for boosting the force’s crime-fighting and service to the public.
His force advised a safety committee about potential dangers in allowing Maccabi Tel Aviv fans to attend a Europa League game against Aston Villa in November 2025. It was claimed that the decision by that committee to ban Maccabi fans amounted to caving in to antisemitism.
Central to West Midlands police’s defence as they planned for the Birmingham game was information from Dutch police. The force said this intelligence led it to believe Maccabi fans had been perpetrators of violence during a match against Ajax in Amsterdam in November 2024.
But Dutch police disputed this claim, saying the cause of trouble before the Amsterdam game was much more mixed, with Israeli fans and pro-Palestinian supporters provoking one another.
Mahmood said: “The West Midlands police engagement with the Dutch police is one of the most disquieting elements of Sir Andy’s report. The summary, provided as evidence to the safety advisory group … was inaccurate.
“Claims, including the number of police officers deployed, links between fans and the Israel Defense Forces, the targeting of Muslim communities, the mass tearing down of Palestinian flags [in Amsterdam], attacks on police officers and on taxi drivers were all either exaggerated or simply untrue.”
The safety group heard that Maccabi fans threw Muslims into a river. In fact, an Israeli fan was thrown in the water, and Cooke said police in England knew that, having read official Dutch reports.
Mahmood said Cooke’s findings showed that “the police overstated the threat posed by the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, while understating the risk that was posed to the Israeli fans if they travelled to the area” amid intelligence that some people in Birmingham were preparing to arm themselves.