European football governing body UEFA and French authorities are to blame for the chaos that delayed the start of last year’s Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid and left thousands of supporters stranded outside the stadium, according to a report.
(Bloomberg) — European football governing body UEFA and French authorities are to blame for the chaos that delayed the start of last year’s Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid and left thousands of supporters stranded outside the stadium, according to a report.
“It is remarkable that no one lost their life,” the authors wrote in the 220-page review commissioned by UEFA.
UEFA’s model for organizing the event lacked “overall control or oversight of safety and security,” according to the report. The organizational model adopted by French police also was defective, aimed at a non-existent threat from football hooligans and preoccupied with ticketless fans rather than ensuring the safe movement of people around the stadium.
The report said the event should be seen as a wake-up call for French authorities ahead of the Rugby World Cup this year and the 2024 Olympic Games. The opening ceremony, planned in central Paris along the Seine River, and the dozens of competitions taking place in the capital are expected to draw millions of visitors.
In his forward to the report, Tiago Brandao Rodrigues, the chair of the panel that conducted the review, said fans attending the 2022 Champions League final “were the main victims of the disgraceful events of that day.” The panel also found no evidence of abnormally large numbers of ticketless supporters or those with invalid tickets.
In a statement on the UEFA website, General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis apologized to fans, in particular to Liverpool supporters.
Spokespeople for France’s interior ministry didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment via phone and email.
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