Britain’s home secretary pressured the head of one of the country’s largest police forces to resign on Wednesday, after a watchdog found the force overstated the threat of violence posed by fans of an Israeli soccer team as a result of intelligence errors.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who oversees law enforcement, said that the West Midlands Police chief constable “no longer has my confidence” after an independent watchdog criticized his force’s role in the ban of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match in England last year.
Supporters of the club were told in October that they would not be allowed to attend a Nov. 6 match against Aston Villa in Birmingham.
The move sparked a backlash from Jewish community leaders and politicians in Britain and in Israel, prompting Ms. Mahmood to ask Britain’s independent police watchdog, Andy Cooke, to investigate police assessments in the run-up to the ban.
Mr. Cooke’s preliminary report was published on Wednesday. It said that West Midlands Police provided misleading information when it recommended banning Maccabi fans to the committee that oversees public safety measures for sports matches.
The committee followed the police’s advice and told Aston Villa to offer no tickets to Maccabi fans.
Much of the information that the police provided to the committee centered on violence that took place around a soccer match in Amsterdam in November 2024, between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax, a Dutch team.
Mr. Cooke wrote that West Midlands Police’s operational plans for the match in Birmingham “initially reflected a genuine desire to accommodate Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters.” But he said that after the force spoke to Dutch police, and reviewed a number of official Dutch reports into the Amsterdam violence, the force’s position moved in favor of a ban on the Maccabi fans.
Before and after the Amsterdam match, Mr. Cooke said, “there is evidence that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans targeted Muslims and pro-Palestinians” in the city. But he said that some of the numbers and details about the violence that were included in the West Midlands Police assessment were exaggerated. After the match, Israeli supporters were assaulted and faced antisemitic abuse.
In its report to the public safety committee, West Midlands Police “portrayed the level of disorder” in Amsterdam, “and the part played by Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters, as greater than it really was,” Mr. Cooke said. As a result, the Oct. 16 decision to ban Maccabi fans from the Aston Villa game was based on incorrect information, he concluded.
Mr. Cooke said that he had found no evidence that antisemitism “played any part” in the police’s actions. However, he said that “confirmation bias, in relation to the anticipated behavior of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and the potential disorder their presence might cause,” had influenced their assessment. And he criticized the force for missing “opportunities to effectively engage with members of the local Jewish community.”
Ms. Mahmood said that the West Midlands chief constable, Craig Guildford, should ultimately be held responsible for the mistakes.
At present, he could only be removed by Simon Foster, the locally-elected police and crime commissioner. Mr. Foster made no move on Wednesday but said he would give the findings “careful and detailed consideration.” A statement from West Midlands Police apologized for the “unintentional” errors and vowed to address the issues raised.
Ms. Mahmood said that she would introduce legislation to give herself the power to fire police chiefs in cases of “significant or persistent failings.” That power was removed from the home secretary in 2011 by a Conservative-led government.
The leader of Birmingham City Council, John Cotton, called for Mr. Guildford to resign. But Ayoub Khan, the independent lawmaker representing the area where Aston Villa’s stadium sits, said the police chief was the victim of a “witch hunt.”
The Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council issued a joint statement welcoming Ms. Mahmood’s statement of no confidence in Mr. Guildford. They said the police watchdog report “confirmed our long-held concerns that the force sought evidence that supported a predetermined conclusion rather than following the evidence to a reasonable conclusion.”
In October, as the game neared, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain pushed for the decision to bar supporters to be reversed. In the end, amid growing anger, and agitation from far-right groups, the Israeli soccer team pre-emptively declined an allocation of tickets for their fans.
Senior officials from the force responsible for policing the game have been questioned by Parliament’s Home Affairs committee, which is expected to publish a final report on the episode later this year.
That panel has faced accusations of conflicts of interest after several of its members said they belonged to pro-Israel parliamentary groups, including Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel.
Last summer, the mayor of Amsterdam said the city would not host Maccabi fans for an Ajax match in the near future. And in December, European soccer’s governing body reprimanded the team’s fans for “racist and/or discriminatory behavior” in a game against Germany’s Stuttgart that month and threatened them with a ban if it was repeated.
Tariq Panja is a global sports correspondent, focusing on stories where money, geopolitics and crime intersect with the sports world.
The post U.K. Home Secretary Presses Police Chief to Resign Over Israeli Soccer Fan Ban appeared first on New York Times.
