The head of England’s second biggest police force has stepped down after an official inquiry found that “greatly exaggerated” intelligence was used to justify a ban on fans of an Israeli football team attending a match.

Craig Guildford retired with immediate effect as chief constable of West Midlands police on Friday, two days after a damning report led Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, to declare she had lost confidence in him.

Guildford, 52, believed he could hang on until Simon Foster, the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, decided his fate, a decision that was not due for at least 10 days, with Mahmood having no legal power to oust him.

But his defiance was broken by continued criticism from cabinet ministers. Downing Street made it clear Keir Starmer had lost confidence and fellow chiefs told him his clinging to office risked damaging the police’s reputation nationally.

It also became clear to Guildford, who had a £220,000-a-year salary and will retire on a full pension, that the row would be a distraction for months. One senior policing source had described him after the report as a “dead man walking”.

The deal for his departure was done on Friday with Foster agreeing to the decision, which crucially meant a potential legal battle would be avoided.

The force had advised Birmingham’s safety advisory group in October that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were too dangerous to be allowed to attend a 6 November Europa League game against Aston Villa.

Bit by bit the intelligence case unravelled, but sources told the Guardian that the ousted chief constable still believed the decision had been “made on good grounds, and kept everyone safe”.

The report by Andy Cooke, the chief inspector of constabulary, attacked the force’s credibility in trying to justify the ban, and the home secretary is expected to use a police reform white paper due out by 28 January to give herself power to sack chiefs she deems to be failing.

Mahmood, having claimed a scalp demanded by the right as well as significant figures in her party, said: “The findings of the chief inspector were damning. They set out a catalogue of failings that have harmed trust in West Midlands police.

“By stepping down, Craig Guildford has done the right thing today. I would like to acknowledge his years of service. And I pay tribute to the work of the officers in West Midlands police who keep their community safe every day. Today marks a crucial first step to rebuilding trust and confidence in the force amongst all the communities they serve.”

Guildford, a police officer for 32 years, has been chief of the West Midlands force since 2022 and boosted its crime-fighting and service to the public. He said: “I have come to the conclusion that the political and media frenzy around myself and my position has become detrimental to all the great work undertaken by my officers and staff in serving communities across the West Midlands.

“I have carefully considered my position and concluded that retirement is in the best interests of the organisation, myself and my family. With the force’s dedicated and hard-working workforce, together we have turned this force around.”

Foster said Guildford’s retirement, first revealed by the Guardian, meant he had “acted with honour and in the best interests of West Midlands police and our region. I welcome his decision.”

“I am pleased this outcome has been reached having regard to due process and the law,” added Foster, who had faced criticism from some for not immediately sacking Guildford after the scathing report. “That has prevented what might otherwise have been a complex procedure that would have caused significant distraction, impact and cost to West Midlands police and the wider West Midlands.”

Foster will now have to find a new chief constable for the Birmingham-headquartered force. Scott Green, the force’s deputy chief constable, will step into the role temporarily.

Senior sources accept there is a shortage of capable police leaders.

Central to West Midlands police’s defence as they planned for the Birmingham game was information from Dutch police. The force said this intelligence led it to believe Maccabi fans had been perpetrators of violence during a match against Ajax in Amsterdam in November 2024.

But Dutch police disputed this claim, saying the cause of trouble before the Amsterdam game was much more mixed, with Israeli fans and pro-Palestinian supporters provoking one another. Cooke’s report found that West Midlands police had “greatly exaggerated” the problems in Amsterdam.

Police intelligence emerged showing Guildford’s force had been told some locals might arm themselves if Israeli fans turned up, which led to claims the ban amounted to caving in to antisemitism. News of it emerged a fortnight after a terrorist attack left two dead at a synagogue in Manchester.

Guildford testified twice before MPs on the home affairs committee, with each appearance prompting further criticism. In the first hearing, he admitted part of a force dossier contained a reference to a Maccabi game against West Ham that never happened, and it had been gathered erroneously using artificial intelligence. The report from MPs is expected to be more savage than Cooke’s.

Two of the most prominent Jewish groups, Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, backed Guildford’s departure, and the latter said it would work with Guildford’s successor “to restore confidence”.

The independent Birmingham MP Ayoub Khan said: “Today an honourable man of integrity has been ruthlessly scapegoated and discarded in favour of appeasing hooligans and the very violence his actions prevented. This was not accountability, it was a witch-hunt.”