The British Interior Minister, Shabana Mahmood, on Wednesday January 14 withdrew her confidence in the Birmingham police chief, who has been in the hot seat since the decision to ban supporters of the Maccabi Tel-Aviv football club from attending a match in the English city in November.
This October, this decision to ban supporters of the Israeli Club from stadiums was strongly communicated, in particular by the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and the Israeli government. The British government is demanding an independent report, published by Mercedi.
The conclusions are “overwhelming”a declared MMe Mahmood in front of the House of Commons. The Home Secretary strongly criticized Birmingham Police Chief Craig Guildford. “He no longer has my trust”she declared.
She does not have the power to remove him from office, but announced that the Labor government would restore the possibility for interior ministers to dismiss police officials in the event of “serious or persistent breaches”.
In October, local police are available in class “skin risk” The European League meeting between Maccabi Tel-Aviv and the English club Aston Villa, which took place on November 6 in Birmingham, in the center of England. She explained that it was based “on recent information and previous incidents”including the confrontations which took place in 2024 in the Europa League during the match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi.
The decision to intervene in the Israeli club’s supporters’ stadium is at the disposal of the local authorities, who are informed of the police’s recommendations. The published investigation report is clearly based on information about the support of Israeli supporters in the cities of Amsterdam by the British police. “either exaggerated or simply false”. This police force is available in particular mentioned a match between the English club West Ham and Maccabi Tel Aviv although this meeting never took place.
Asked about this by MPs, Craig Guildford said the error came from a Google search. Equipment is available to use artificial intelligence in research. But in a letter to MPs on Wednesday morning, Mr Guildford acknowledged that this incorrect information came from research carried out on Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant. He has a gift “sincere apologies for this error”.