Liverpool have urged Uefa to implement all the recommendations made in a critical report of its handling of last season’s Champions League final and condemned the “shocking false narratives” that sought to shift blame for the chaos on to supporters.
An independent panel commissioned by Uefa after the appalling scenes outside the Stade de France last May found that European football’s governing body bore “primary responsibility for failures” that almost led to a “mass fatality catastrophe” in Paris. The panel said it was the actions of Liverpool supporters, many with experience of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, that helped prevent a loss of life at Uefa’s showpiece event.
Responding to the panel’s findings, Liverpool accused Uefa and the French authorities of exacerbating the suffering of families, friends and survivors of Hillsborough. The club has called on Uefa to transparently implement the report’s 21 recommendations to ensure the safety of all supporters attending a Uefa-organised game.
“We call on Uefa and others at the top of the football regulation pyramid to come together and take positive and transparent action to ensure there are no more ‘near misses’,” read the Liverpool statement. “We implore Uefa to fully enact the recommendations as outlined by the panel – no matter how difficult – to ensure supporter safety is the number one priority at the heart of every Uefa football fixture.”
Uefa initially blamed the late arrival of fans for delaying kick-off to the final against Real Madrid for more than 30 minutes. French police and ministers later claimed that thousands of Liverpool fans had arrived at Stade de France without valid tickets. The panel found this a “reprehensible” attempt by the authorities to deflect responsibility for their own failures.
Liverpool said: “Shocking false narratives were peddled in the immediate aftermath of that night in Paris; narratives that have since been totally disproven. The independent French senate report published in July 2022 found Liverpool supporters were unfairly and wrongly blamed for the chaotic scenes to divert attention from the real organisational failures. The independent senate report also published 15 recommendations for improvements. No action has been taken on these recommendations to date.
The panel's 21 recommendations to improve safety and security at finals
1. Uefa should set up a process to ensure that the panel’s recommendations are implemented, including by other stakeholders. Uefa should publish an action plan on its website and regular updates on progress.
2. Uefa should always require that all stakeholders responsible for hosting a Champions League final follow the 2016 Council of Europe “Saint Denis Convention”. It agreed an approach towards supporters based on “safety, security and service” rather than one based on preparing for disorder.
3. Uefa should ensure that its safety and security unit has oversight and primary responsibility for the safety, security, and service component of Champions League final operations.
4. Uefa’s safety and security unit should develop its capacity to “ensure that mobility and access arrangements are as safe and secure as possible for supporters with any disabilities or special needs, and that service to them is optimised”.
5. A host stadium’s safety team should be directly and more fully involved in the planning for a match and making risk assessments.
6. Host stadiums must all have “well-managed security perimeters, welcome services and crowd guidance and orientation”.
7. Uefa should have a formal requirement in the host bidding process that police commit to compliance with the “engagement-focused” approach towards supporters agreed in the Saint Denis Convention.
8. Uefa’s safety and security unit should engage with host police commanders in advance, support access to relevant expertise and invite them to observe quarter- and semi-finals, gaining experience of clubs’ supporters. If problems are identified in the planning phase and cannot be resolved, these should be “escalated to government authorities”.
9. Uefa should move as rapidly as possible to solely digital ticketing, and ensure host venues are fully capable of supporting this. Having both digital and paper ticketing at the Paris final was a factor in causing the long delays and access problems.
10. Uefa should “optimise” its communications and messaging toward supporters regarding the match facilities, mobility, routing and access arrangements. “Above all else it should embed the involvement of supporter organisations and finalist club stewards in its communication strategy, to effectively spread information and urgent messages.”
11. Finalist clubs should have their supporter liaison officers acting as the key contact for supporters. This is already an obligation under the Uefa club licensing regulations.
12. Football Supporters Europe and its affiliated supporter organisations “need to be involved as meaningful stakeholders throughout the planning process” and their representatives need to act as “integrated observers” at the final. They should also be involved in post-match analysis.
13. Uefa should require the host FA to deploy customer service stewards at key parts of the transport network and across the final approach to the stadium, to give guidance to supporters and also provide information to control rooms.
14. Medical and first aid personnel should be always visible and accessible, including at access points, gates and in the stadium concourse.
15. Uefa’s post-match analysis process should be “more analytically and objectively robust”. Uefa should involve external “operational, academic, and supporter-based expertise”.
16: The Council of Europe monitoring committee should review how compliance with the Saint Denis convention can be better monitored and the obligations “more comprehensively enforced”.
17. The panel encourages the authorities in France to follow Council of Europe recommendations and those made by the French government official Michel Cadot, to improve management and oversight of major sporting events across ministries.
18. The French ministries of interior and sport should institute their own review of the policing model at sporting events. This should involve supporters’ representatives, experts and academics. Policing authorities should guarantee they will operate a “supporter engagement” model, and that riot police, teargas and pepper spray will only ever be used, proportionately, where deemed necessary due to a risk to life.
19. French authorities should review policy relating to retaining CCTV footage and other material for the purpose of investigations likely to improve security and public safety. Uefa should address this as a requirement from hosts.
20. Host stakeholders should “undertake robust scrutiny” to ensure their arrangements will comply with the Saint Denis convention. Uefa’s safety and security unit should be involved to ensure that compliance is being achieved during the planning process.
21. Uefa and the Council of Europe monitoring committee should look closely at their capacity to apply some of the above recommendations at other Uefa-governed fixtures besides the Champions League final, to avoid similar dangers developing. David Conn
“It is shocking that more than 30 years after the Hillsborough disaster any club and our group of fans would be subject to such fundamental safety failings which have had such a devastating impact on so many. But even more concerning is the realisation that for families, friends and survivors of Hillsborough, Paris has only exacerbated their suffering. Our thoughts go out to all our fans who have suffered as a result of Paris and we would remind them of the mental health support we put in place in the days following the disaster that was the Uefa Champions League final in Paris.”
The Football Association welcomed the findings of a panel led by the former Portugal sports minister Tiago Brandão Rodrigues. It has not, however, criticised Uefa or its president, Aleksander Ceferin. Ceferin is set to be re-elected unopposed for another four-year term in April.
“We welcome the findings of the very detailed and thorough report, and are pleased that Liverpool fans have been praised for their exemplary behaviour on the night – behaviour which saved lives,” the FA said. “The report contains important recommendations which are relevant to everyone involved in the delivery of major football events, and positive action should be taken to ensure that this never happens again.”
The Liverpool supporters’ union Spirit of Shankly (SOS) and the Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association (LDSA) helped compile witness testimonies in the immediate aftermath of the final. Joe Blott and Ted Morris, chair of SOS and LDSA respectively, gave evidence on behalf of supporters at the French senate hearing last June.
“The fans have been exonerated,” said SOS. “A breakdown in communication on the day, the failures of Uefa, the French police and authorities were to blame. The shame – beginning with the stadium billboard announcing kick-off was delayed due to fans arriving late, supporters being teargassed and pepper sprayed, pickpocketed and attacked, people frightened they were going to die – is on them.
“We would like to thank the panel for their forensic approach, dedication and analysis in finding the truth. They finish their report with 21 recommendations for hosting and organising future events. We would expect Uefa and the authorities to act upon each of these. We also expect an apology for the lies and smears Uefa so quickly aimed at supporters, without whom their competition and showcase final would be nothing.”
Morris said the harrowing events outside Stade de France, where disabled supporters were left “fearing for their lives” in the congestion and were among those teargassed by Paris police, showed Uefa is failing disabled fans.
The LDSA chair said: “One of the lessons that must be taken from this report is that in terms of making European football accessible, Uefa has much work to do. We ask that they work with us and seek our expertise to address these injustices and give young disabled supporters from all corners of Europe hope that one day they can follow their football team in the same way that non-disabled children can.
“Equality and fairness should not be a fight; it must be a right. In 2023 and with the knowledge of the terrifying experiences disabled supporters experienced in Paris, this is not and should not be an impossible dream.”
On Monday, Uefa apologised to Liverpool fans “for the experiences many of them had when attending the game and for the messages released prior to and during the game which had the effect of unjustly blaming them for the situation leading to the delayed kick-off”.
Uefa said it was committed to learning lessons and was “reviewing “the panel’s recommendations “in order to introduce appropriate changes and arrangements to ensure the highest level of safety for fans at future finals”.
