What led to the downfall of the chief of West Midlands Police goes beyond a football match and the exclusion of a fan base.
It is a scandal that exposed skewed approaches while navigating the complexities and sensitivities of policing the ripples of the Israel-Gaza war and inflamed tensions in Birmingham.
And above all, it laid bare how one of the country’s leading police forces mishandled intelligence, neglected the discrimination faced by a minority community, and repeatedly misled security meetings, the public and MPs.
It led to three apologies from West Midlands Police (WMP) before the resignation of chief constable Craig Guildford on Friday, after losing the confidence of the government and the local council leader.
There was evasiveness from the moment WMP went public with the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in mid-October, having had since August to prepare for the match against Aston Villa.
They couldn’t immediately tell me whether it was imposed because of the threat posed by the Israelis or to the Israelis in Birmingham, with its strong contingent of pro-Palestinian activism.
It took three weeks to provide answers denouncing Israelis as being too dangerous to allow into Villa Park, which became central to the multiple investigations that forced out Mr Guildford.
What chief superintendent Tom Joyce told me remains the only interview in which WMP explained the need to exclude Maccabi fans from the Europa League match on 6 November.
The key context was this: Maccabi went into the match without any pending or recent sanctions for fan misconduct by UEFA – the competition organisers who usually impose fan bans.
But a section of the Maccabi fan base was filmed engaging in violence in Amsterdam in 2024 and chanting anti-Palestinian racist abuse.
That required WMP to contact their Dutch counterparts, who also informed them of the antisemitic violence by locals in Amsterdam, hunting down and kicking Maccabi supporters, leading to the only five convictions.
Maccabi CEO Jack Angelides did admit to Sky News: “There are elements in the club that are not in line with our values, our morals.”
But he was furious at “falsehoods” being peddled while lacking an explanation from the police for the ban.
It came from Mr Joyce telling Sky News: “It is exclusively a decision we made on the basis of the behaviour of a sub-section of Maccabi fans.”
He revealed that while the “threat” to Maccabi fans was a “consideration”, it was “not the primary driver”.
Instead, he said, the fact was that “there is a section of Maccabi fans, not all Maccabi fans, but a section who engage in quite significant levels of hooliganism”.
Some pro-Palestinian activists who might otherwise challenge the word of authorities took that as validation of their concerns, while for Jewish groups it deepened fears around antisemitism.
Even without away fans, the scale of the police operation at the match itself – with reinforcements brought in from across the country – showed why the easiest option for WMP was to advocate for no Israelis.
There were still arrests for discriminatory abuse by activists who gathered outside in support and opposition of Israel. The only heated moments seemed to be from frustrated Villa fans being delayed from getting in.
Mr Joyce had approved signs saying “Zionists not welcome” – a reference to those backing the existence of the Jewish state of Israel.
When asked if there could be signs saying another nationality was not welcome in an area of Birmingham, he said: “Our understanding is that they don’t quite contravene hate crime.”
Such neglect of the concerns of the Jewish community – at a time of heightened antisemitism – explains why MPs on the Home Affairs select committee started investigating the original decision, officially taken by Birmingham City Council’s Safety Advisory Group on police advice.
Media, including Sky News, also probed how the decision was reached.
Dutch police disputed the accuracy of how their Birmingham counterparts used information about the 2024 unrest in Amsterdam, with clear contradictions only able to be highlighted due to leaked WMP documents.
WMP’s intelligence assessment claimed that Maccabi fans apparently intentionally targeted Muslim communities in Amsterdam, but the Dutch force told me: “We did not see large groups of Maccabi’s (fans) going into Muslim populated areas to target Muslims.”
Claims that Maccabi fans threw “innocent members of the public into the river” were also not endorsed by the Dutch.
The statement from the Amsterdam Police in full
But there was one glaring error that was exposed by fact-checking and took more than a month for police to apologise for – the existence in the intelligence report of a previous Maccabi match in England against West Ham that never existed.
They insisted it did not come from tapping into an AI tool but from a Google search, only to admit this week it was spewed out unverified by Microsoft’s Copilot system.
Another apology came from assistant chief constable Mike O’Hara, telling MPs in December that the Jewish community in Birmingham backed banning Maccabi fans.
But Sky News obtained minutes of the SAG meeting the day the ban was imposed that showed officers knew: “Jewish community groups have expressed concern that banning away fans could be perceived as antisemitic, rather than a public safety decision.
“This perception could undermine trust and increase reputational risk for authorities and the club.”
Mr Guildford did later apologise, writing to MPs to say: “There was never any intention to mislead whatsoever.”
But the initial report from the body that polices the police, the chief inspectorate, was damning.
The 11-page letter to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said there was “confirmation bias” by the police to justify the ban.
It concluded that officers overstated the threat posed by Maccabi fans and underplayed the threat to them.
West Midlands Police did have “high confidence intelligence” that members of the local community in Birmingham were planning to arm themselves to attack Maccabi supporters.
That was received in the first week of September but only revealed publicly last week via MPs.
Still, for Ayoub Khan, the MP for Aston who pushed for the ban, the danger always came from Maccabi fans. For him, the injustice is Mr Guilford going for protecting the community, insisting there was no “malign intent”.
But for Jews grieving after the deadly terror attack on a Manchester synagogue in October, it reinforced concerns Britain could not protect the community. Or would not do enough to.
This is a policing scandal about a match that went far beyond football.
And while the government hopes Mr Guildford’s exit rebuilds “trust and confidence in the force”, it could only be the start, with more investigation reports to come from MPs and the police watchdogs.
