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Politicians and fan groups have expressed their disbelief and fear that UEFA will go ahead with planning for the Champions League final in Istanbul in June with the same management team that was considered “mainly responsible” for the final chaos of the year. past that almost became a “mass fatality.” catastrophe’.
UEFA’s independent review, which was published last week, corroborated The Mail on Sunday’s own findings on last year’s debacle and cited Sportsmail as a key source for its work.
It confirmed, as revealed by the MoS, that the deaths were only prevented at the Stade de France in Paris due to the reassurance of Liverpool fans, that there was a complete meltdown between the authorities in planning, a probable technological failure in the scanning of tickets and that there was “no evidence that counterfeit tickets were a factor” in the chaos.
UEFA’s top executive responsible for event planning, Martin Kallen, is said to have provided “factually false” evidence to the French Senate, the French equivalent of the House of Commons. The panel added that he was “particularly unimpressed with the evidence from him.”
Kallen remains in charge of UEFA Events, the department responsible for the Champions League and Europa League finals, despite the report saying that “UEFA presented the Senate with a completely misleading view of what it knew” and though he was found to have sidelined the role. of UEFA’s own Security and Surveillance Unit in planning the final between Liverpool and Real Madrid last year.
Fatalities were only avoided at the Stade de France thanks to the calm of the Liverpool fans
There was a break between authorities in planning and a probable technological failure in ticket scanning
The panel also notes that it was “beyond any doubt” that UEFA executives presenting evidence to the French Senate should provide “accurate and complete evidence to a parliamentary committee” and that “Mr Kallen and Mr Zylberstein [UEFA director of European affairs and governance] it did not’.
Ian Byrne, MP for Liverpool West Derby, who attended the final and was caught up in the chaos, said: “The people who oversee the final in Istanbul are the same people who oversee Paris.” That should terrify all fans. I have big concerns about going abroad under the umbrella of UEFA.
“The concern is that there has been no acknowledgment from UEFA, no push to say that we probably have people in positions that are not fit for purpose, so we will have to make a total change before the next finals.”
‘We need to keep the pressure on UEFA because this is not just a fight for Liverpool fans; this is a fight for the future safety of all fans across Europe. We need to galvanize everyone who has seen this report, thinks it is horrible and wants change for the better.’
Joe Blott, chairman of Liverpool’s Spirit of Shankly supporters group, said: “Nothing gives me any faith that the fans will be safer in Istanbul.” As for learning the lessons, there are only a few months left, but UEFA is deathly silent. I would expect people to be held accountable and individuals to be held accountable themselves. If nothing is done, how can we have faith that change will happen?’
UEFA issued an initial statement welcoming the report, apologizing to fans and pledging to review its content and recommendations before this year’s finals. The FA is understood to be seeking assurances from UEFA that the 21 recommendations will be adopted.
UEFA’s Martin Kallen is said to have given ‘factually false’ evidence to the French Senate
The report is denigrating in its assessment of the authorities, detailing the incompetence of the Paris police and proving that one of France’s top politicians, Gerald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, presented misleading information to the French Senate about ticketless fans, using figures that were ‘significantly exaggerated’ and ‘used as an excuse to mask other failures’.
He says it should have been obvious that the use of tear gas by police was ‘disproportionate and life-threatening… to any competent police commander’ and raises fears for this year’s Rugby World Cup and the Olympics and Next year’s Paralympics, all organized by the Stade. de France, given that the Paris police ‘have not accepted their role in the failure to prevent congestion… [nor] admitted he failed to protect supporters from street crime… [nor] resisted by the use of tear gas and pepper spray.’
He is damning for UEFA, saying they sought to ‘avoid responsibility for failures that nearly led to catastrophe’ and that the evidence from Kallen’s UEFA Events team was ‘striking in its orientation to protect itself’. UEFA’s senior management was aware of the problems with his department and “had not addressed [them] for several years’.
It found that UEFA had a “casual disregard for the truth” in messages about the reasons for the match’s delay and that they even edited those statements under pressure from the French police and the French Ministry of the Interior to remove mention of the impact that the Local criminals were in chaos.
As the potential fatal crush occurred, “there were no crisis meetings involving police.”
Even when the potentially fatal crush occurred, the report says there were “no crisis meetings involving police.” [but] others were moved to an anteroom for purposes that are still unclear but included discussions of VIP transportation.’
The decision to delay the kick-off had to be ratified by the UEFA president, despite the fact that he was in a meeting with the King of Spain in the VIP area and not in the control room.
UEFA’s calculation of how quickly fans could be processed was based on “flawed” figures and only 934 of 1,716 commissioners had completed UEFA’s online training module, likely causing major problems for the scan tickets.
Even on June 8, Kallen was repeating lies about late arrivals and fake tickets because he said he was unaware police had incorrectly diverted almost all Liverpool fans to a public transport station and then to a unique and totally inappropriate checkpoint. : despite the fact that this was a key finding of an investigation by The Mail on Sunday on June 3.
On match day, well before kick-off, an outside adviser told UEFA that the checkpoint that caused the chaos was “not fit for purpose”, expressed “horror” at police vans parked to obstruct to the fans and warned that “this [plan] will not survive contact’, however, ‘none of these observations led to action’.
In fact, the panel was “unable to identify anything done by UEFA Events… to mitigate the emergency” as it unfolded.
The report concludes that “there has been a merry-go-round of blame, with each interested party trying to shift the blame onto one another, and there has been a casual disregard for evidence in their attempts to ultimately blame supporters.”