The head of a British policing watchdog tasked with investigating the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending the Israeli football club’s match against Aston Villa failed to include any voices from Birmingham’s Muslim community in his preliminary report.
The report by Andy Cooke, the chief inspector of constabulary, led to the UK Home Secretary Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood saying that she had “no confidence” in Craig Guildford, the chief constable of West Midlands Police (WMP), prompting Guildford’s immediate retirement.
In a letter last week to Mahmood, who had commissioned the review, Cooke said he had conducted “twenty interviews with significant people” as part of his initial investigation into police intelligence-gathering used to justify the ban.
Those interviewed by Cooke include the charge d’affaires from the Israeli embassy in London, a representative of the Jewish Representative Council for Birmingham and West Midlands, and Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism.
However, Cooke did not include any voices from Muslim community groups or mosque leaders. Muslims make up approximately 30 percent of Birmingham’s population and almost 10 percent of the wider West Midlands region, according to census data.
