British police force chief behind decision to ban Maccabi fans from Aston Villa match retires

LONDON — The head of the British police force that suggested banning fans from Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv from a football match against English Premier League side Aston Villa in Birmingham last year retired on Friday following backlash against that decision.

Craig Guildford, the chief constable of West Midlands Police, will step down immediately as the head of the force after facing increasing pressure to resign over the controversy. The announcement was made by the locally elected police and crime commissioner Simon Foster outside police headquarters in Birmingham.

Guildford’s position has been in jeopardy since the release of a report on the decision to ban Maccabi fans from attending the match at Villa Park on Nov. 6. The report concluded that the decision last year exaggerated the threat posed by Maccabi fans and downplayed the risk to them.

After the report was made public, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood expressed a lack of confidence in Guildford and called for his resignation.

Mahmood stated that she did not have the authority to dismiss Guildford due to a policy change implemented by the previous Conservative government in 2011, but she was exploring options to restore that power to home secretaries. Currently, locally elected police and crime commissioners hold that authority.

The ban was enforced amid heightened concerns about antisemitism in Britain following a fatal attack on a Manchester synagogue and demands from Palestinians and their advocates for a sports boycott of Israel due to the conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

West Midlands Police stated that they considered the match to be high-risk “based on current intelligence and previous incidents,” which included violence and hate crimes during a match between Maccabi and Ajax in Amsterdam the previous season.