MP Ayoub Khan said the Chief Constable ‘did nothing wrong’
A Birmingham MP has blasted the Government after the West Midlands Police’s Chief Constable announced his retirement.
Craig Guildford stepped down from his role with ‘immediate effect’, after his decision to ban away fans from attending the Europa League football match between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv on 6 November 2025, sparked uproar.
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.
MP Ayoub Khan, whose constituency include the Villa ground, labelled the former Chief Constable’s departure a ‘witch hunt.’
Meanwhile Scott Green has been appointed as interim Acting Chief Constable
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Mr Khan said: “I think it is extremely disappointing. This decision is one which offends many Brummies.
“This Chief Constable did nothing wrong, he made the right decision, the right call supported by so many Brummies here and in particular the Muslim community.
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“What we know is that the Maccabi Tel Aviv Ultras were known to attack Muslims, that is something which is undisputed.
“This is something confirmed by not just the Amsterdam Police but the Cooke report, the independent report which said Muslims were targeted specifically in Amsterdam the night before, so there was a Muslim hunt.
“When a Chief Constable makes this decision based on public safety, he’s been thrown under the bus because he did not conform to the political narrative that was being spewed right from the top, from the Prime Minister who said this decision was anti-semitic and he weaponised religion and unfortunately we’ve seen a witch hunt.”
A report by Sir Andy Cooke, chief inspector of constabularies, said. West Midlands police overstated the threat posed by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans while understating those posed to fans if they travelled to the area, using ‘confirmation bias’.
They also made multiple errors and twice ‘misled parliament’, including by denying using AI to scrape for evidence when they had.
MPs have called for Guildford to go and accused the force of giving a misleading account.
They say that the force “retrospectively” gathered intelligence to justify the ban rather than basing it on genuine evidence at the time of the decision.