UEFA deemed 'primarily responsible' for Champions League Final 'near-miss' - Reports
The 2021-22 UEFA Champions League Final witnessed chaos, as fans struggled to get inside the venue on time, leading to a delayed start to the Liverpool-Real Madrid tie, while UEFA has been mainly blamed for the fiasco.
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FollowThe UEFA Champions League (UCL) Final saw chaos outside the Stade de France in Paris. Fans struggled to get inside the venue on time, leading to the tie between Liverpool and Real Madrid witnessing a delayed kick-off. Although the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) blamed some Liverpool fans for trying to enter the venue with a valid ticket as the reason for the mess, an independent review, which the UEFA commissioned, has found the European governing body itself is "primarily responsible" for the fiasco.
The report suggested that no "Plan B" existed and that the French Football authorities were wrong in accusing the Liverpool supporters of fake tickets. Also, the French Police were criticised for handling the situation and treating the fans as they used tear gas. At the same time, the report demanded the cops, UEFA and French Football Federation (FF) take responsibility for the issue.
"The dangerous conditions on the concourse outside the turnstiles were compounded by the police deploying tear gas at disorderly groups of locals and using pepper spray on supporters trying to gain entrance with valid tickets. Remarkably, no one lost their life. All the stakeholders interviewed by the panel have agreed that this situation was a near-miss: a term used when an event almost turns into a mass fatality catastrophe," the report read as per FortMob.
"The late change of venue meant that the normal timetable for the organisation had to be truncated, and planning for the event had to be adapted to the circumstances. Compromises could be made to many areas of the event, but safety and security were not among them. Whereas there could be no bidding process or development of a concept, full attention should have been paid to the formulation and agreement of venue and event risk assessments and proper operational plans. That did not happen," added the report.
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The report also mentioned that UEFA risked the 1989 Hillsborough disaster repeating last year, as it cited, "The parallels between Hillsborough 1989 and Paris 2022 are palpable. The similarities include that both events were preventable and caused by the failures of those responsible for public safety. Neither was a 'black swan' event or the result of a 'perfect storm'."
As for the fake ticket allegations against Liverpool supporters, the report stated, "The panel draws the inference that they have been made [ticketless fans claims] primarily to deflect from responsibility for planning and operational failures. It is reprehensible and has involved UEFA, UEFA Events SA, FFF, the Prefecture de Police, Government Officials and French Ministers. Both events were foreseeable. In the panel's judgment, the different outcomes were a matter of chance: in one, nearly a hundred died, the other none, but through no merit of those in charge."
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